


They Fall Like Acid Rain

by SunshineAndRoseWater



Series: On Dust Storms of Rebellion They Fall Like Acid Rain [3]
Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 17:29:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4028569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineAndRoseWater/pseuds/SunshineAndRoseWater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With their leader missing the Killjoys start falling apart. That is until Brian comes to them with news of a new threat in the Zones, something BLI is calling "Annihilators." Mikey, lost without Gerard, has turned to drinking to cope. It all changes when he comes face to face with one of the Annihilators and survives. With the help of Frank, Ray, and his on-again off-again boyfriend Brian, Mikey sobers up and prepares to face the most dangerous threat they've ever seen.</p>
<p>A sequel to my Bandom Big Bang 2014 story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2016579">On Dust Storms of Rebellion</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	They Fall Like Acid Rain

**Author's Note:**

> [Fanart by dapatty](http://dapatty.dreamwidth.org/35700.html) who is made of perfection. Seriously, go check this art out, it's amazing!
> 
> I fudged their ages a little, essentially making all the characters younger than their real life counterparts would be in 2019. Age differences between them remain the same.

_Look alive, Sunshines! It’s your favorite desert DJ, Dr. Death Defying, bringing you the news and slaughtermatic sounds to keep you alive._

_We’ve been hearing some interesting reports lately about our favorite Trio of Terror. Well, it looks like they’ve broken up. Yes, it seems Fun Ghoul is running with a new crowd these days. If any of you were out here long enough to remember, Ghoul used to run on his own before he became associated with Party Poison and Kobra Kid. Now it seems he’s split off and joined with our newest Killjoy, Jet Star. This duo is occasionally seen with a young child, whose identity remains unknown. These two seem to be keeping up with the Trio’s anti-BLI actions; sabotaging supply lines, killing Dracs, and raising Hell whenever they can._

_Kobra Kid’s been seen around. At a bar here, a trading post there. Most reports are unsubstantiated._

_As for Party Poison. Well, it seems our fiery-headed Terror is MIA. Not a sign of him anywhere in the Zones. Could this mean he’s been caught? Ghosted? Desert-willing he’s somewhere safe. If I hear anything then you, dear listeners, will be the first to know._

_In the meantime here’s a little AC/DC to rock you on your desert travels._

*

“Turn it off.”

The bartender hesitates. Mikey glares at him over the top of his oversized sunglasses. The bartender reaches back and clicks the knob, silencing Dr. D’s report.

“Turn it back on,” an angry voice calls from the back of the bar.

Mikey downs the last of his drink and gets off his stool, swaying a little.

The guy who spoke is coming towards the bar. He’s Mikey’s height, but with a broader frame and thicker build to Mikey’s lean muscle. He has a purplish-red mop of hair and Mikey hates him for it instantly. As soon as Dr. D reported that Party Poison was MIA wannabes started coming out of the woodwork with bad dye-jobs and god complexes. Mikey despises them all.

“You keep that on,” the wannabe tells the bartender. “Never turn off Dr. D. We could miss an important report.”

“It’s all lies and rumors,” Mikey shoots back. “It's bullshit.”

“It’s useful.”

“It’s bullshit and I don’t wanna fuckin’ hear it.”

The wannabe cracks his knuckles. “You wanna go, Blondie?”

Mikey plants his feet, keeping his hands tucked casually in his pockets. “Only if there’s candlelight.”

The wannabe throws a punch, but Mikey steps forward and the shot goes wide, missing his head. Fast as a snake Mikey strikes the wannabe’s windpipe with the side of his hand. He goes down, coughing and sputtering.

The wannabe’s friends rush to his side. One of them has blue hair; the other - a girl - is a natural brunette. Mikey appreciates that they haven’t copied his or Frank’s hair colors. Then again, they don’t seem to know who he is so it’s likely they never bothered to look at anything beyond his brother’s hair.

“Dude,” Blue Head says. “You’re a freak.”

Mikey shrugs and stumbles back to the bar, confident he can turn his back on the three without consequence. He taps his empty glass and looks to the bartender.

The bartender stays where he is on the far side of the bar.

“Listen here, Runner. Get out.”

Out of the corner of his eye Mikey can see other people getting out of their chairs. No one is approaching him yet, but he knows they will if he tries anything. It seems this bar has a very loyal clientele. Mikey’s not drunk enough to believe he can take on the whole bar single-handedly so he nods. Collecting his helmet and gloves he staggers out the door. As soon as the flimsy screen slaps shut behind him the radio turns back on and _Have A Drink On Me_ chases him out into the desert.

He pukes on the side of the building in retaliation.

*

The diner is dark when Mikey gets back, the Trans Am nowhere to be seen. He walks the bike to the side of the building and covers it with a tarp. Sobriety is beginning to sharpen his senses so he digs into the ancient ice chest that hasn’t held ice in years and digs out a mason jar of clear liquid. The hand-written label declares the contents are Nitrous Oxide, though it’s hardly something to fuel a racecar. Mikey still sometimes refers to it as Moonshine, its name from Before, usually when he’s too plastered to remember what year it is.

He takes a few gulps of the clear, distilled drink and the feeling of liquid fire burns down his throat, wiping out all other sensations. Finished he carefully nestles the jar back in amongst the others and stumbles inside. He crawls under his blanket and passes out.

*

Mikey wakes to nudging. When he pries his eyes open Frank is standing over him kicking him lightly in the shoulder. Mikey groans.

“You alive?” Frank asks.

“Hhhhhnnnggggg…”

“Good. Brian’ll be here in a few.”

“Wha…” Mikey struggles to sit up. “Th’ fuck for?”

“Ray.” Frank’s answer is short, clipped.

Frank gets like this a lot these days. He’ll initiate conversation but refuse to carry the weight of it. It forces Mikey to either continue the conversation or give up. If he chooses to give up, however, Frank tends to get pissy and will start giving him the silent treatment. Mikey hates this game.

“What happened with Ray?”

“Misfire.”

Mikey blinks and sits up. He scratches his head as if it will help him to think better.

“This happened before.” It’s a half-statement, half-question. Mikey’s pretty sure he’s been roused for a similar situation recently. He thinks. Probably.

Frank nods.

“The C-4?”

Frank nods again.

Mikey groans. “Jesus, why do you keep using it then, you idiot?”

Frank bristles. “It’s not the C-4, jackass. The blasting caps are bad.”

Mikey cocks an eyebrow. “Okay, so why-”

“Because it’s all we have and we haven’t made a successful raid for better ones. Because our only truly successful raids have involved at least three people, if you recall.” Frank practically spits his last words.

Mikey’s shoulders stiffen. “You used to do just fine on your own, _if you recall_.”

“You found me on the side of the road with a piece of shrapnel in my side,” Frank says.

“Well, you weren’t dead.”

“Aren’t you going to ask how Ray is?”

Mikey blinks, thrown by the subject change. “How’s Ray?”

“Fine, minor burns on his hand and arm, but he should heal.”

“Okay.”

“Do you know where Grace has been?”

Mikey sighs. “If there’s a point to all this-”

Frank cuts him off. “We left her here, _in your care_ , remember?”

“You-”

“Yeah.” Frank steps closer and Mikey automatically shrinks back against the wall. “And you forgot because you were so concerned with getting drunk that you left her here _alone_.”

“Is she-”

“She cleaned up you puke.” Frank steps back and scuffs his boot on a cleaner part of floor next to Mikey’s mat. “You’re lucky that’s all she had to deal with. Now get up.”

Mikey knows a command when he hears one. He also knows how to pick his fights. Using the wall for support he pulls himself to his feet. The room spins, but the sensation only lasts a moment before settling down. However, as soon as he steps away from the wall he loses his balance. Frank catches him, holding him upright with a firm grip on his upper arm.

The physical contact feels nice, even if Frank is gripping his arm harder than necessary. Mikey’s never been a touchy-feely kind of guy, but most of the people in his life have been. Brian doesn’t come across as a cuddly-type person, but when they’re alone together Brian acts as if he’s trying to fill his personal contact quota. Frank is just the type of person who lacks a personal space bubble. He is constantly in people’s spaces, leaning on them, draped over them, regardless of temperature or hygiene. At least he was. Lately he hasn’t been within three feet of Mikey for more than a few minutes. Then there was always Gerard…

“Jesus, you smell like a distillery,” Frank complains.

“Well, you smell like burnt hair and diesel fuel.”

“At least I actually did something with my night.”

Mikey doesn’t fight the accusation. Instead he changes the subject. “There are more of them.”

“Of who?” Frank perks up slightly.

“Wannabes-” Frank deflates “-pretending to be like him.”

“You gotta let that go,” Frank admonishes.

“I can’t.”

“We have bigger problems- Riot!”

The tell-tale red jeep pulls to a stop in front of the diner as Frank drags Mikey out the front door.

“Hey, Ghoul!” Brian calls, bounding out of his jeep looking far too bright-eyed for Mikey’s liking. “Where is he?”

Mikey pulls away and settles himself on an overturned crate while Frank leads Brian over to Ray, perched on the hood of the Trans Am.

The sun is too bright so Mikey digs his sunglasses out of his pocket. One of the arms is bent, probably the result of sleeping on them, but he gets it bent back into place with relative ease. Grace emerges at some point, carrying a canteen that she offers first to her father and then to the others.

Mikey could really use some of that water, he realizes as he watches the others trade sips from the canteen. Grace doesn’t offer him any, though. He also doesn’t have the nerve to speak up, not with Brian present and Frank still angry with him.

He decides going back to bed would be the best option.

“Wait, Mikey,” Ray calls.

Mikey pauses in the doorframe, he doesn’t want another lecture, but he also hates the idea of one of them following him to harass him later.

“What?” he calls back, not turning around.

“Come here.”

Mikey groans quietly, but shuffles over to the group, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

“So,” Ray starts, once Mikey has reached them. “What were you saying, Brian?”

“There’s a new BLI threat in the Zones. They’re called Annihilators.”

“Annihilators,” Frank scoffs, “that’s a stupid name.”

Brian shrugs. “Seems appropriate. We can tie them to the destruction of three dives and at least one trading post. All in flames, no survivors.”

“Subtle,” Frank jokes. No one laughs.

“If there are no survivors, how do you know it’s them?” Ray asks.

“BLI,” Brian explains. “They want us to know. News reports are coming straight from the City. They claim they are ‘neutralizing the desert threat.’”

“I don’t feel very neutralized,” Frank mutters.

“How do you know all this?” Ray asks.

“I’ve met a few people,” Brian hedges. “People will trade a lot for medical care.”

“What sort of people?” The words are out before Mikey even thinks about it.

Everyone looks startled to hear him speak.

“Reliable sort of people,” Brian says, looking at Mikey for the first time. “The sort of people who have eyes and ears everywhere and actually seem to know what they’re doing.”

The comment stings and Mikey can’t hold eye contact any longer. Even Frank shifts uncomfortably next to him.

Gerard was always the one with the plan. They relied on him to know when and how to strike and how to cause the most damage to BLI. Without him it feels like someone has lobbed Mikey’s good arm off, he’s technically still a person but he’s missing the most important part of himself. Even Frank looks lost without Gerard. Ray, having hardly ever run with Gerard, looks to Frank and Mikey like he thinks they can still be the Fabulous Killjoys he’s heard about. At least he did, the last time Mikey was sober enough to check.

He checks now and sees Ray looking at them just as Brian is, partly accusing mostly just disappointed. A sudden rage flares up inside Mikey and all he wants is to wipe that look off their faces, even if he has to beat them into the dirt to do so. He could probably take them. Ray has more bulk, but Mikey’s time in the desert has given him lean and powerful muscles and he has a few dozen desert brawls under his belt. He knows he can knock Brian into the desert sand because he’s done so. A few times.

Mikey doesn’t realize he’s balled his hands into fists until someone grabs the corner of his shirt and he nearly decks them.

“Mikey?” Grace tugs at the corner of his shirt. She holds up the canteen. “Do you want the rest?”

Grace is looking up at him so innocently; completely unaware that Mikey almost punched her. The realization makes him feel sick and suddenly all his rage is replaced with disgust and the powerful need to wipe away these emotions.

He pulls away and makes for his bike as fast as he can without running.

“Mikey,” Frank calls, “don’t leave.”

The words are flat, monotone. He says them without meaning or energy, already knowing Mikey won’t listen.

He’s right.

*

_You’re running, Mikey._

Of course he’s running. It’s what people do out here in the desert. They run.

Keep running.

Except he’s not really running. He’s stumbling. Tripping. Falling. Stumbling again.

_Why are you running, Mikey?_

Because it’s what people do out here in the desert. The sun’ll burst you into flames if you stay in one place too long.

_Keep telling yourself that._

When he drinks enough he forgets the accusations. The anger. It all fades into a soft buzz in his head.

When he drinks enough he forgets his brother’s face.

He’s not sure if it’s better that way.

_You’re running away, Mikey._

He’s not.

He’s not because he’s not running. He’s lying down.

He can’t go home because he can’t get up. He doesn’t even know where home is anymore. The rundown shithole where he lives with three people who hate him isn’t home.

Gerard is his home. And he is missing. Mikey’s home is missing and he’s so lost without it.

_You’re still running, Mikey._

He’s not because he has nowhere to run to.

So he falls asleep beneath the stars.

*

It’s the second day, sort of.

Mikey woke up a few hours ago next to his tipped over bike on a particularly barren stretch of desert, the sun burning his exposed skin. The sun was just beginning to set when he woke so he knows, fundamentally, that he spent at least an entire day in the sun. This means he is going to be in a world of hurt very soon.

His trademark red jacket is draped on the bike, not serving its purpose of protecting his from the sun at all. At least his helmet and gun are where they should be. The strangely painted yellow helmet, one of Gerard’s designs, is on his head, protecting it from the glaring sun. His red raygun is in his leg holster, waiting patiently for its next fight. Mikey’s time in the desert has given him the knee-jerk reaction to always check for his gun, regardless if it’s necessary. On this barren stretch of desert it’s hardly required. In fact there’s nothing here worth noting. The emptiness of the desert makes his skin crawl so he climbs on his bike and moves on.

He’s drinking away the first itches of sunburn when it happens.

Mikey likes this bar. They have something they call Glop which is basically canned beans, but somehow made edible. They also have the strongest drinks in the Zones.

Mikey gets a free drink every time he comes in all because he kicked a particularly problematic patron out of the joint a few months back. The guy was some husky blond-haired bastard who was harassing the two female co-owners. Annoyed with the guy’s comments and his disturbing the quiet atmosphere of the bar Mikey had hauled him out of the shack. He’d knocked the guy down with a few good punches to the face then kicked him a few times in the gut. Then he took the guy for a joyride on his bike. The heckler hasn’t been back since.

Mikey is always greeted with a warm welcome every time he stops by, and this time is no different. It’s the only place he feels welcome anymore. Annie sets down a strong glass of Battery Bomber without question and Allie follows a second later with a jar of BLI Sun Skin Repair. The stuff is like gold in the desert and Mikey pushes it away, he doesn’t have anything worth trading for it, but Allie presses it back into his palm.

“Please,” she says, “just a handful. On the house.”

Mikey must really look like hell.

The bar is rather busy, though most Runners give him a wide berth. Everyone who visits this bar has either seen what Mikey did to the heckler or heard about the confrontation and no one wants to be the next one to cross him. This suits Mikey just fine.

By his third drink Mikey has worked up a comforting buzz and between that and the medicine he can hardly feel his sunburn.

He’s not prepared for the door to be busted in.

Night has already fallen when someone kicks in the old wooden door. It wasn’t locked, but the kick forces the latch to crack the door frame. Splintering wood scatters across the floor. Everyone turns to the door, curious about why anyone would enter so dramatically.

Then the shooting starts.

They first _pew_ of a raygun has Mikey diving from his chair, knocking the small table over to act as a shield. He’s not the only one, all the combat-veteran Runners take similar action, putting a barrier between themselves and the gunfire and grabbing their own rayguns.

The gunman fires quickly. Efficiently, if the screams are anything to go by. Mikey snatches his gun from its holster, but he fumbles it and it drops from his hands, skidding across the floor. The sound attracts the gunman’s attention. Mikey freezes as the footsteps approach. Moving slowly, carefully.

Across from his hiding place Mikey spots another Runner. She’s a young girl, hardly more than a teenager, with strawberry-blonde wavy hair and a face that still maintains a babyish look. A thick scar mars one soft cheek and a hard glare ages her looks. She holds her pink and red raygun with confidence.

Her eyes lift from Mikey’s lost gun to meets his gaze. As the gunman approaches she seems to be fully aware that she is the only thing between them and death. She stands quickly and fires without hesitation.

_Pew_ , _pew_ , _pew_.

As she fires Mikey lunges forward. Snatching up his gun he doesn’t take the time to aim properly before he fires. His shot goes wide, but it gives the girl an opening to fire again. The gunman grunts in pain.

The Runners dive for cover once again.

The gunman doesn’t fire again so Mikey dares to take a peek over the top of his table-shield. The gunman is hunched over, clutching his arm. His brown hair is covering his face, but Mikey doesn’t need to see it to recognize the person before him.

“Gerard?”

The gunman’s head snaps up and Mikey finds himself staring into his brother’s wide hazel eyes.

He so relieved he could cry. Instead he struggles to his feet.

“Gerard,” he calls.

Gerard continues to stare at him, saying nothing.

“You know him?” The girl asks, taking a few steps towards Mikey, eyes darting between him and Gerard.

“Yeah,” Mikey says, voice cracking slightly, “he’s my broth-”

The shot hits her right in the chest.

Mikey watches in horror as her body drops to the floor with a sickening thud. There’s no movement but the smoke rising from the hole in her chest.

He’s still frozen in shock when the next shot hits him in the shoulder.

*

When Mikey gets back to the diner Frank is waiting for him. As soon as he’s off his bike Frank grabs him by the shirt.

“Two days, you bastard,” Frank yells, shaking Mikey hard. “Two. Fucking. _Days_. Not a word. Not a sign of you. We thought you were _dead_!”

“Frank,” Brian calls, running towards them, “let him go!”

“Why?” Frank snaps, but he steps back anyway.

Brian shoves an empty paint can into Mikey’s hands just before he begins to puke. “That’s why.”

When Mikey resurfaces from the can Frank lays into him again. “Where. The fuck. Were you?”

“I saw Gerard.”

“What?” Ray asks, coming up to them.

Ray and Brian step forward, eager to listen, but Frank steps back like he’s been punched in the gut.

“Gerard was at the bar,” Mikey gasps. “He’s alive and he-”

“Shut the fuck up.” Frank hisses.

“But, Frank, he was-”

“I said shut up!” Frank snaps. “Party Poison is dead! He died in that fucking raid months ago and he’s not coming back.”

He points a finger at Mikey accusingly. “And you are nothing more than a drunk. A deluded alcoholic who can’t face the truth.”

Brian places a hand on his shoulder. “Frank…”

“No.” Frank shoves Brian off. To Mikey “You’re a delusional alcoholic and you need to move on.”

“If I’m the one who needs to move on,” Mikey begins quietly, “then why can’t you even say his name?”

Mikey’s not sure what sort of reaction he expects, but he isn’t prepared for the unguarded look of true pain in Frank’s eyes.

“Frank…”

Frank walks away without a word.

“Frank!” Mikey moves to follow him, but he loses his balance. Ray catches him, his hand unknowingly grasping Mikey wounded shoulder. Mikey cries out, the pain causing his vision to blur.

There’s a flurry of movement and sound, but with the pain in his shoulder re-awoken it’s suddenly all-consuming and Mikey can’t focus on anything else.

Then everything goes black.

*

Mikey wakes to someone patting his cheek, gently but insistently.

“Mikey, hey, you gotta wake up. C’mon, Mikes.” It’s Frank, Mikey knows his voice even with his eyes closed.

He forces his eyes open and Frank’s face comes into view, above him and upside down.

“Hey,” Frank smiles slightly and Mikey finally realizes his head is pillowed in Frank’s lap. “There you are.”

“I was somewhere else?”

Frank cards his fingers through Mikey’s hair. “Yeah, you were for a bit. Okay, this is really important. You need to tell me where the bar is.”

“The bar?” Mikey asks.

“Yeah, the bar where you saw… The bar where you saw him. I need to know.”

“Zone 4. Near The Tower.”

“Good job,” Frank’s voice is soft, soothing. “Now go back to sleep.”

“They're all dead,” Mikey whispers, memories of that night resurfacing.

“Shh,” Frank shushes, running his fingers gently across Mikey’s cheek. “Sleep now, Mikey. Just sleep.”

Mikey does.

*

Mikey sleeps fitfully. Whenever he wakes it is always to someone caring for him. Ray dripping water through his parched lips, Grace placing a cool cloth on his feverish forehead, Frank comforting him through his tremors, and Brian treating his injuries.

Once he wakes to Brian gently massaging the cooling skin cream onto his blistered flesh. He catches Brian’s hand and holds it carefully. Painfully slowly he lifts their joined hands, every move tearing his burned flesh. Brian watches closely as Mikey kisses his hand. Mikey means the gesture to be a question as well as an apology.

He falls asleep before he can get Brian’s reply.

*

“I’m gonna puke.”

Mikey’s declaration is followed by someone hauling him into a sitting position and shoving a bucket into his lap.

There’s hardly anything in his stomach and the small amount of bile that he vomits burns the entire way up his throat. Even after spitting that up he still dry heaves for too many long, uncomfortable minutes before his stomach stops rebelling.

When he dares to lift his head Frank is sitting next to him gently massaging his unburnt back. Frank takes the bucket from Mikey’s lap and sets it aside.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“Hhhnnnnggggg…” Mikey groans.

“Well, you’re not dead,” Frank jokes.

Mikey feels too ill to laugh. “The others?”

“Following a lead for the next possible target.”

“You’re not with them?”

Frank shrugs. “Someone’s gotta take care of you.”

“Sorry,” Mikey says.

Frank rubs his back more firmly.

“We went to the bar,” Frank says. “Do you remember what happened?”

“He shot them,” the words come out flatly, like Mikey’s reading off a prompt instead of retelling the horror he witnessed. “Gerard shot them. He shot me. He shot us all.”

“You were the only survivor,” Frank chokes out. “You _are_ the only survivor.”

Mikey takes a deep breath. “He’s one of the Annihilators.”

“Brian thinks so,” Frank admits.

“It’s not a far stretch. Not with… That.”

“But _why_?” Frank whines. “I mean… this is _Gerard_ we’re talking about. How is he alive? What happened to make him do this?”

Mikey shrugs uselessly.

*

“Gerard’s an alcoholic.”

Frank’s hand freezes where it’s been running through Mikey’s hair. Mikey is going through a series of tremors again; they aren’t as bad this time. Probably due to the fact that Mikey’s skin had gone from the coated-in-sun-blisters stage to the itchy-and-peeling stage which sucks but doesn’t hurt nearly as bad. Popping sun blisters during tremors was a pain akin to brushing a tongue with sandpaper and the feeling of the pus oozing down his arms sometimes confused Mikey so he thought he was bleeding. Frank is always there for the tremors and his simple motion has been grounding Mikey to reality. He makes a pathetic whining noise and Frank resumes petting him.

After a few moments of silence Frank speaks up.

“Gerard was an alcoholic?”

Mikey shakes his head, rubbing it back and forth where it’s pillowed on Frank’s shoulder. “No ‘was.’ ‘Is.’ There’s never a ‘was’ with that sort of thing… I’m not making sense.”

“No, you are,” Frank insists. “So, Gerard _is_ an alcoholic.”

“Guess it runs in the family,” Mikey jokes.

“Guess so.” Frank sounds contemplative.

“We don’t talk about it. We… It was part of our past. Our life from Before.”

“Why are you telling me this, Mikey?”

Mikey shrugs. “I’ve been there. Where you are. I had to get rid of all the alcohol. I held him up while he puked. I woke him up from his nightmares-”

“You haven’t had nightmares.”

“Just you wait,” Mikey says, holding up a shaking finger declaratively. Frank mumbles something in response, but Mikey ignores him. “Anyway. I did all that and it’s just… I’m the little brother, but I had to be the big brother because I had to take care of him.”

They’re quiet for a long moment. Mikey tries to stay calm while tremors shake his body and Frank silently cards his hands through Mikey’s hair.

“How old are you, Mikey?” Frank asks, breaking the silence.

“Thirty-four.”

“Huh,” Frank responds. “I’m younger than you.”

Mikey starts laughing. He doesn’t know why, but for some reason that is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. His laughter is uncontrollable and hysterical and combined with the tremors it’s making it hard for Mikey to breathe. Then Frank is wrapping him in a fierce hug and rocking him gently and suddenly Mikey isn’t laughing, he’s sobbing. Frank holds him close and whispers soothing nonsense.

“It’s okay. You’ll be okay. Just hang in there. We’ll get through this. I’m not going to let you go.”

*

Mikey’s eating his first meal in he doesn’t know how long when the Jeep returns.

“Why’d they take Grace with them?” Mikey asks as he watches Ray help his daughter out of the backseat.

“So she wouldn’t have to watch you detox,” Frank explains.

“Good idea.”

“Mikey!” Grace squeals, running over and wrapping her arms around him tightly. Mikey finds he’s really glad Frank insisted he bathe and change clothes this morning.

“Hey, Grace. How’re you doing?”

She pulls away and gives him a scrutinizing look. “How are _you_ doing?”

“Better,” Mikey says, confidently.

Brian settles carefully in the chair across from him. “You can eat again?”

Mikey shrugs. “We thought we’d give it a try. But it would be much easier if _someone_ wasn’t squeezing my stomach.”

Grace lets go quickly and bounds back to her father with an excited giggle.

“You definitely seem better,” Brian says with a hint of something in his voice. Anger? Maybe resentment? Certainly something dark.

“I’m sorry,” Mikey squeaks out.

Brian nods. “Good. Now, how are you really feeling?”

The person sitting across from him has switched from Brian to Dr. Schechter. The question is analytic, though not unkind, and the doctor is watching him carefully.

Mikey rubs his eyes tiredly. “Everything’s too much. The sun’s too bright, the radio’s too loud. Fuck, even the goddamn towel felt too rough.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Brian says, “in time.”

“How long?” Mikey whines, peaking through his fingers.

Brian shrugs. “Everyone’s different. It could take days. Or it could take weeks.”

“That’s not very comforting,” Mikey mutters, dropping his hands from his face.

“You want comforting?”

Mikey shrugs, tapping his fork absently. “Yes?”

Brian reaches across the table and plucks the fork from Mikey’s hand, setting it aside. He then grabs Mikey’s hands in his. Mikey’s brain takes a few moments to compute what’s happening, but when it does he looks up to see Brian staring at him intently.

“Thank you,” Brian says. “Thank you for getting sober. Thank you for letting us help you get sober.” He runs a thumb across the back of Mikey’s hand and Mikey wants to melt into the touch. “It means a lot to us - to me - that you would try to pull yourself back together like this.”

Mikey looks away, embarrassed. “It’s not like I had much of a choice.”

Brian pulls back suddenly. “Is that how you see this? That we forced you into something you didn’t want?”

“No, wait, Brian-”

“Was what we did a waste of our effort?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Mikey whines, reaching out for Brian’s hands once again.

“Then what do you mean?” Brian catches Mikey’s chin in his hand and forces Mikey to look him in the eye. ‘Do you want this sobriety?”

Mikey closes him eyes. Things were so much easier when he was drunk. The world wasn’t nearly as harsh. He understands why Gerard had chosen to crawl into a bottle for years to numb everything. But Mikey also remembers how scared he’d been of Gerard, how the person before him was like some malevolent alien that had taken over his brother’s body. He also remembers how clear and bright and _alive_ Gerard’s eyes looked when he was finally sober and how they haven’t lost that brilliance since.

Mikey opens his eyes and meets Brian’s gaze unflinchingly. “Now that I have it. I want it.”

Brian releases his chin with a satisfied nod.

“Guys, come listen to this!” Frank calls.

Frank and Ray are hunched over the old radio on the counter. Ray is clutching the antennae gently, trying to hold it in place while Frank fiddles with the tuning knob. They haven’t changed the station in, well, ever. From the minute they found Dr. D’s signal they hadn’t dared touch the dials except to control the volume. Now what’s filtering in is decidedly not the Rock ‘N Roll-loving DJ.

“Welcome to Fact News,” a nasally newscaster’s voice breaks through the static. “The only news.”

“A _BLI_ transmission?” Mikey asks. “Why are we-”

“Shh!” Frank shushes.

“Annihilator Model Zero-Zero-Four is operating at a high-efficiency level with a one hundred percent success rate. AM Zero-Zero-Four is expected to neutralize Zone Four by the end of the month. Better Living Industries would like to assure listeners that AM Zero-Zero-One through Zero-Zero-Three will be in operation before the end to the week. That is all for Fact News: The only news.”

The channel turns to static and Frank clicks the radio off.

“That’s been the same report every half-hour for the entire day,” Brian explains.

“Does it ever change?” Mikey asks.

“Yes. They report every ‘neutralization’ - as they call them - within a few hours of its occurrence. Sometimes they even leave hints.”

“Hints?” Frank presses.

Brian points to the radio. “They told us their project’s stomping ground. Zone Four. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a mass evacuation of the Zone. BLI’s giving away too much, Runners are catching on. Everyone’s started tuning into this channel.”

Brian taps his fingers on the table thoughtfully. “I need to check on something. I’ll be back.”

Brian heads for his jeep with the others trailing after him.

“You can’t just leave,” Frank says. “Not with, fucking, model zero-zero-whatever out there.”

“He’s in Zone Four,” Brian says. “I’ll be fine.”

“Will you?” Mikey asks.

Brian turns to face them all. “Yes. I’ll be just fine. And I’ll be back by morning, you’ll see.”

Mikey grabs Brian’s arm before he can climb into his jeep. “You better not die. Or I’ll kill you myself.”

Brian laughs. “I don’t doubt that.”

“Good.” With effort Mikey makes himself let go.

Brian seems to hesitate a moment, frozen with one foot in his jeep, then he grabs Mikey by his shirt and drags him in for a firm kiss. Mikey leans into it, wrapping a hand around Brian’s neck and deepening the kiss.

Brian pulls back, their lips parting with a wet smack, and pushes Mikey out of the way of the jeep door. He climbs in and starts the vehicle.

“By morning,” he repeats. “Promise.”

Mikey watches him drive away.

*

“Is this really a good idea, Mikey?”

Frank walks up to him, following Mikey’s gaze to the dust cloud Brian left behind.

“He shouldn’t go alone,” Mikey says.

“That’s… That’s not what I’m talking about, Mikes.”

Mikey breaks his vigil to see Frank watching him, concern written clearly on his face. Mikey puts a hand over his lips almost self-consciously, they’re still wet from the kiss.

“I love him,” Mikey admits. He thinks it might be the first time he’s ever said these words but suddenly their truth rings painfully clear. Regardless of all the bad they have been through Mikey loves Brian. It’s terrifying to admit, but exhilarating at the same time.

Frank heaves a long-suffering sigh.

*

They fill Mikey in on what they found while he was sobering up.

Initially Frank and Brian had gone out to find the bar. They found it without trouble near the monolithic rock formation known as The Tower in Zone 4. That was the second anomaly of the case. With every other encounter every witness had been killed and the place had been set ablaze. This time not only had Mikey survived, but the sight of the massacre remained intact.

They found a can of accelerant and scorch marks licking up the side of the building, but the fire failed to catch for whatever reason. The front door was spray painted with a crudely done BLI logo and the numbers “004.” Brian explained that he’d seen or heard of people finding similar graffiti on the charred remains of other targeted places.

Inside the bar was nothing but death. As Mikey had said in his feverish declarations, everyone was dead. From Annie and Allie huddled together behind the bar to the strawberry-blonde teen Mikey had watched get shot. They had found Mikey’s gun next to the teen’s firearm and Frank had insisted on bringing both back.

Mikey thanks Frank profusely as he takes back his favorite weapon and marvels at the other gun. The entire thing is pink with red stripes running the length of the barrel, just as Mikey remembered. On the grip is a meticulously painted winking Hello Kitty face. On the body of the gun is the carefully calligraphied name “Najihah” and below that the dates “2001-2018.”

Frank presses Mikey, prodding him for any information, to no avail. He can’t remember much, everything after getting shot is blank up until he came back to himself racing through the desert, controlling his bike with one hand. Giving up on the interrogation they go back to telling Mikey what he missed.

After Frank and Brian had returned from the bar Frank had stayed behind while Brian, Ray, and Grace went on a hunt for more information.

They soon discovered what the radio informed them today; all hits were happening in Zone 4. It didn’t make much sense to them until the announcement about the other Annihilators. Apparently BLI is manufacturing a model for each Zone. If BLI manages to get a working model for each Zone then every Runner will be at risk. Something has to be done, and soon, Ray insists.

“Why do you keep phrasing it like that?” Mikey asks. “BLI is ‘manufacturing models.’ You make it sound like they’re some sort of robot or something.”

“We’re not entirely sure they aren’t,” Ray hedges.

Mikey scoffs. “I think I would know if my own brother was a robot.”

“Was that Gerard, though?” Ray asks.

Mikey narrows his gaze. “You don’t believe me.”

“It’s kinda hard to.” Ray admits. “Your brother, rebel-leader and most prolific when it comes to flipping BLI the finger, goes missing and is presumed by many - don’t even, you know it’s true - to be dead.”

Mikey was about to refute the statement, but Ray has a point, most people thought Gerard was dead.

“But suddenly he turns up unharmed. And, for some reason, instead of working against BLI he’s suddenly working for them. _Killing_ for them. I mean, Mikey, do you really think that could be him?”

“I know what I saw,” Mikey insists. “I know my brother. I saw his face. I looked him right in the eyes. That was Gerard.”

“Are you sure? Because a few minutes ago you admitted you had memory lapses about that night.”

Mikey slams his fist on the table. “I know my own damn brother!”

“Then, by your logic,” Frank speaks up, “Gerard massacred an entire building full of people. Including attempting to murder you. How do you explain that?”

“BLI did something to him.” The defense is weak, but it’s all Mikey has. He doesn’t know what “something” they could have done to Gerard or how that would turn him into a mass murderer, but it’s the only explanation he has.

Ray and Frank don’t argue with him further.

*

When Brian returns Mikey is tucked in a corner of the diner, treating everyone with a resentful silence.

Mikey hears the jeep pull up but he doesn’t lift his head from where it’s resting on his knees, pillowed in his arms. He doesn’t move when he hears Brian enter, nor when Brian settles in front of him, or even when Brian starts gently rubbing his legs.

“Go ‘way,” Mikey mumbles into the crook of his elbow.

“Can I get you anything?” Brian asks.

“A drink.”

“Well, I’ve got some juice in the jeep.”

“You know what I _fucking_ mean.” The vehemence of the curse is lost when keeping his head down muffles the sound.

Brian sighs and Mikey feels him shift closer, leaning against his legs and resting his forehead on Mikey’s folded arms. “What happened?”

Mikey pulls his face far enough out of his elbow so he can be heard better. “Oh nothing. My big brother’s just a mass murderer. Or my brother isn’t my brother at all, but a robot, and I’m just a delusional alcoholic who can’t tell the difference.

“Oh.”

“So go away.”

“No,” Brian says, leaning even heavier on Mikey’s legs.

Mikey wiggles his legs and whines, but Brian doesn’t budge.

“Stop that,” Brian says. “What are you, two?”

“Three,” Mikey mumbles, kicking out lightly. He hits something fleshy and Brian grunts.

“Fine,” Brian snaps, getting up. “Come find me when you’re done throwing your temper tantrum.”

Mikey counts to ten, breathing slowly and carefully to rein in his anger. _It’s not Brian’s fault_ , he reminds himself, _he’s just trying to help_.

_You love him, remember?_

Maybe drinking something non-alcoholic will help. Maybe getting off his ass and thinking about something besides Gerard and how fucked up this situation is will help. He hauls himself to his feet and trails after Brian.

“Hey,” he says, walking up to Brian and placing a hand on his shoulder. When he doesn’t pull away Mikey places a gentle kiss to his temple. “I think I’ll take that juice, if you’re still offering?”

“Sure,” Brian agrees, tilting his head and leaning in to Mikey’s second kiss to his cheek like he somehow knows it’s coming. “Help me get it from the trunk?”

“Sure.”

*

They are all settled around a table with cans of juice, brainstorming with whatever information Brian brought back. Grace is sitting next to Ray, looking pleased to be included in the discussion. Under the table Mikey has hooked his foot around Brian’s ankle just because he can. The scene feels oddly domestic.

They’ve had moments like this in the Zones, few and far between, but still. Moments in which nothing much is happening yet everything feels safe and even homey. This is the first one Mikey has experienced without Gerard by his side and the thought makes his heart ache. So he focuses on the conversation at hand.

“Dr. D. isn’t losing any listeners. Well, not any more than he usually does.”

“And this is important because?” Frank prompts.

Brian shrugs. “If people are listening to BLI’s signal they might not be listening to his. I thought BLI was trying to remotely sabotage Dr. D’s radio operation, but I guess not.”

“Give the Runners some relevant information so we’ll stop tuning in to Dr. D,” Mikey says, flicking the pop-tab on his can of juice absently.

“That’s what I thought,” Brian admits, “But I was wrong.”

“They’re both important sources in the Zones these days, though,” Frank says. “We really should be listening to both.”

Ray sighs. “How do you recommend we do that? Changing the station took ten minutes and sometimes we still lose the signal. The car radio is better, but it’s not like we can keep the Trans Am running, that wastes too much fuel.”

“Get another radio?” Frank offers, sounding slightly pained.

“With what? We’ve got nothing tradable except the fucking car and our food. We haven’t had a successful raid in-”

“I know, I know,” Frank moans.

“Wait,” Brian says, “what?”

Frank throws out his hands dramatically. “Welcome to the true lives of the Fabulous Fuck-ups!”

Brian looks around at them. “You… you have nothing?”

Ray shakes his head somberly. Frank sighs.

“You see, everything we were, we were because of Gerard. Gerard knew how to plan, how to negotiate, how to… Gerard knew how to talk to people!” Frank flailed again. “I know cars and pyro. I’m no good at dealing with people. Not like he was.”

Mikey says nothing. It’s true; Gerard was the only one who could really talk to people. Gerard used to claim that wasn’t true, that Mikey and Frank were far more social than him. In a way he was right, but sociability doesn’t directly lead to negotiability. Mikey and Frank would dangle the bait, but it was really Gerard who would make the fish bite.

Apparently, Gerard’s absence had created more problems than Mikey was aware of. Mikey had been too busy caught up in his own grief and denial to pay much attention to daily life out in the desert, he had no idea what kind of provisions they had. Hell, the only thing he knew they had was the Nitrous Oxide out in the broken icebox.

Mikey jumps to his feet so fast the rest of the group startles.

“We have something,” Mikey says, “something tradable.”

The alcohol no one else knew about. It was Mikey’s closely guarded secret. If he gave it up now then that would be it, there would be no more alcohol in the diner. A dark part of his brain starts screaming at him to shut up, sit down, and don’t tell. Mikey forces himself to ignore it.

“What is it?” Frank asks. “Where is it?”

“The icebox, on the side of the diner.”

Frank jumps up. “Show us.”

Mikey shakes his head. “I can’t.”

Frank hesitates, but only for a moment. “Okay. I’m. Okay, I’m going to go get it. Ray?”

“Don’t,” Mikey says quickly. “Don’t bring it in here.”

Frank nods. “Okay.”

*

Mikey stays inside the diner, wrapped in Brian’s firm embrace, listening to the tell-tale clink of the liquid-filled jars as Frank and Ray move them from the icebox and load them into the Trans Am.

“It’s for the better,” Mikey says, as if he can actually make himself believe it.

“Yes,” Brian says, “it is.”

*

“They took Grace.”

Brian looks up from his book, blinking back to reality. “Yes?”

“They took Grace,” Mikey repeats, “but not me.”

“They didn’t want you near the alcohol.” Brian points at him. “ _You_ didn’t want you near the alcohol.”

“So why didn’t you go?”

Brian shrugs. “It’s not my alcohol.”

“It’s not theirs, either! It’s mine!” Mikey snaps.

Brian snaps his book shut with a firm slap. “Oh my god, Mikey, shut the hell up!”

Mikey is stunned, Brian rarely yells. Before he can form a reply Brian chucks his book to the side and lunges, tackling Mikey to the ground. Mikey makes an undignified yelp of surprise as he topples to the floor.

“What’re you-”

“If you don’t shut up I will make you shut up,” Brian hisses low in his ear.

Mikey shivers. “How’re you-”

Brian kisses him. It’s sudden and intense. He slides his tongue into Mikey’s open mouth, teasing. Mikey moans and reaches for Brian’s shoulders. Brian slides a hand around Mikey’s neck and somehow manages to deepen the kiss.

Eventually Mikey has to pull back just so he can breathe. Brian let’s him, moving so he can kiss his way down Mikey’s neck. “God, I’ve missed this,” Mikey sighs.

“Hm?” Brian says, between kisses. “And who’s. Fault. Is that?”

Mikey scratches his fingernails down Brian’s back, Brian moans. “Yours entirely.”

Brian bites his collarbone. Okay, _ow_. “Keep telling yourself that.” He places a kiss over the bite. “Dick.”

“What did you call me?”

Brian grinds his hips down into Mikey’s. “Nothing.”

“Sure,” Mikey mutters sarcastically. Brian tugs at his shirt and Mikey pulls himself up just enough for Brian to pull his shirt off. Mikey returns the favor.

“Do you really want to talk about this now?” Brian asks, tossing the shirt to the side. “Or do you want to fuck me?”

Mikey stares up at Brian thoughtfully, running his hands down Brian’s chest because, well, because he can.

“Take off your fucking pants.”

Brian grins and kisses him. “You whore.”

“I heard that one,” Mikey says.

Brian startles unbuckling his belt. “I don’t hear you disagreeing with me.”

Mikey shrugs and gets to work on his own belt. Brian laughs.

It’s the first time Mikey’s had sex in a long time. Mikey thinks the same is true for Brian, if the eagerness is anything to go by.

“If you don’t slow down this is going to be very quick,” Mikey warns.

Brian stills and the lack of friction makes Mikey whine. This is so not what he meant by ‘slow down.’

Brian’s grin is evil. “What’s the matter, Mikey, never done this before?”

Mikey wants to punch him; instead he thrust his hips up and whines. “It’s just been a really long time.”

“How long?” Brian starts moving again, slowly riding Mikey’s dick.

“Remember the last time we _tried_ to have sex? When your shack burnt down?”

Brian stops moving, but only for a moment. “That is a long time.”

“Yeah, especially considering we didn’t even get off that time.” Mikey thrusts his hips up and Brian gasps. Mikey does it again in the same spot, Brian moans.

“Oh fuck,” Brian breathes. “You really haven’t been with anyone?”

“No. I just…” The conversation is getting oddly serious and Mikey really wants it to be over, but he feels compelled to finish his thought. “I love you, Brian. I just… I love _you_.”

They’ve both stopped moving, Mikey can’t remember when. He’s completely focused on Brian’s face, trying to read his expression.

“Oh, Mikey,” Brian says finally. He catches Mikey’s mouth in a kiss that is chaste yet somehow intimate. Mikey decides he never wants this kiss to end, it’s so soft and sweet he just wants to taste it forever.

Brian breaks the kiss an infinity too soon. “Fuck me, Mikey. I want to see you come.”

Mikey rolls them over. He grabs Brian’s hips to get a better angle and starts thrusting harder. Brian reaches his hands out, looking for purchase on the dusty linoleum. When he can’t find it he settles on gripping Mikey’s shoulders.

“Mikey, god,” Brian moans.

“You haven’t been with anyone either?” Mikey asks, because the thought is bugging him.

“No.” Brian answers easily. “Fuck, _Mikey_.”

Mikey believes him, really he does. Yet there’s still a small, dark part of his brain that whispers _yeah right, as if anyone would wait for a fuckup like you_.

Then Brian pushes himself up enough to catch Mikey’s mouth in a wet kiss. “I’m gonna…”

Mikey knows before Brian even says it. He can see Brian’s erratic breathing and hear the high-pitched moans. He knows what Brian sounds like just before he comes.

He speeds up and Brian comes, whispering Mikey’s name over and over through his orgasm. Mikey orgasms just after him.

*

Mikey flicks a pebble, watching as it skips along the hard, dusty road before crashing into some brush.

“Something troubling you?”

He flicks another pebble. It goes careening off in a completely different direction. “You never said it.”

“Said what?”

Without turning around Mikey knows Brian is leaning against the wall, feigning casualness. “I told you I loved you and you just…” Mikey shrugs, searching the dirt for another pebble.

Brian sighs. “The last person I said that to died in the Fires.”

Mikey resists the urge to roll his eyes; everyone lost someone they loved in the Fires.

“That last person I said that to went missing and turned up as a mass murderer working for a cruel dictatorial corporation. It doesn’t stop me from saying it again”

“Fair enough,” Brian concedes.

Mikey finds two good throwing rocks. He holds one out and Brian takes it. Mikey takes aim at a pothole in the road and flicks the stone, it flies far off course and spirals into the ditch. Brian flicks his stone and they both watch as it skips straight, landing in the pothole with a soft thump.

“You’re not going to say it, are you?” Mikey asks, using his foot to dig for more rocks.

“I can’t, Mikey,” Brian admits. “I don’t know how.”

Mikey unearths one more good throwing rock and passes it to Brian.

“Whatever you say.”

*

The haul the Trans Am returns with is nothing short of amazing.

With all of them working together it still takes three trips to unload the car. They end up with a pile of food cans and a duffel bag stuffed with medical supplies among other various pieces of car parts and other equipment Frank insists are useful. Most important is the radio. Its look is circa 2015 and its sound quality attests to its young age.

“Can we play Dr. D. on this one?” Frank asks, petting a speaker lovingly.

“You couldn’t get a HAM radio?” Brian asks. “Something to communicate?”

Ray shakes his head. “No one had any to trade. A couple traders claimed they did, but they refused to show us the goods unless we gave half our stock up front.”

“You were supposed to get a HAM radio,” Brian says, sounding exasperated.

Ray bristles. “Well shit, Brian, if I could just do what I was ‘supposed’ to do I’d be living in a nice two-story house in the suburbs with my fucking family. But that’s not happening any time soon.”

Brian sighs, rubbing his temples firmly. “I didn’t mean to be short with you. I just need it.”

“For what?” Mikey and Frank ask in unison.

“Nothing… just… just stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” Mikey presses.

Brian looks away, scratching the back of his head thoughtfully. Mikey knows that habit.

“Brian, I’m not gonna let this go,” he warns.

“I promised my contacts that I would be in touch,” Brian admits. “There’s expecting to hear from me.”

“And how were you going to contact them?” Mikey asks. “Unless you have a radio we don’t know about.”

Brian starts scratching the back of his head again. “No. I told them I’d figure it out.”

“Well, that worked out, didn’t it?” Mikey mutters, and then decides to stop harassing him. “Why do you need to talk to them?”

“They want to meet the Killjoys personally. I told them I’d let them know as soon as Ray and Frank got back so we could go meet them.”

“Oh, okay.” Mikey was expecting something bad - like perhaps someone was in trouble - but a meet with Brian’s helpful contacts sounds like a good thing. “We’d like to meet these Runners, right?”

Ray and Frank nod in agreement.

“So should we go meet them?” Mikey heads to his mattress to collect his red jacket. “Might as well, since we have no way to contact them.”

Brian mumbles something into his hand, avoiding Mikey’s gaze.

“What did you say?”

“They don’t want to meet you,” Brian repeats.

“What?”

“They want to meet Ray and Frank. They don’t want to meet you. They don’t like you.”

Mikey blinks at him, and then looks at the others who appear just as confused as him.

“Why not? They’ve never met me.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Brian says, “They know who you are. They kinda have eyes and ears everywhere.”

Mikey pauses, twisting his jacket in his hands thoughtfully before tossing it back on his mattress.

“So,” he says with forced calm, “how long have you known Dr. Death-Defying?”

“How-”

“He has access to all the info you’ve been telling us,” Ray says.

“He has ‘eyes and ears everywhere,’” Frank adds.

“And I’ve bad-mouthed him plenty of times over the past few months,” Mikey finishes. “Why would you keep something like that from us?”

“Don’t you trust us?” Grace asks.

“Of course I do,” Brian exclaims, running a hand over her frizzy hair. “But Dr. D doesn’t. I had to operate as his informant for five months without ever seeing him before he agreed to meet me. And he only let me because Show Pony got hurt. Believe me, wanting to meet you is putting a lot of trust in you guys.”

“Show Pony?” Mikey asks.

“Dr. D’s right hand man. He operates like the DJ’s legs, doing runs and meets all over the Zones for him.” A small smile unexpectedly splits Brian’s face. “He’s, uh, _quite_ the character.”

Mikey feels his hands clench into fists. Suddenly he really hates this strangely-named Runner.

“So, should we go right away?” Frank asks.

“ _What_?” Mikey snaps.

“Dude,” Frank says, throwing his hands up in a surrender pose. “It’s Dr. D. We can’t pass up the opportunity to meet _the_ DJ.”

“So you’ll go without me?”

“I guess.” Frank shrugs. “What other choice do we have, right?”

“You can stay here with Grace,” Ray suggests.

“I can’t come?” Grace whines.

“No,” Ray and Brian insist firmly.

Grace crosses her arms and pouts.

“You want me to babysit?” Mikey demands.

“Call it a trust exercise.” Frank stares Mikey down. “We want to see if we can trust you to watch Grace and not go running off to get drunk.”

Ray grips his shoulder. “Frank…”

Frank brushes him off. “Can you do that?”

Mikey steps forward, Brian catches his elbow, but Mikey ignores him. “Nice to see you still hate me.”

Frank sighs and his own glare fades. “That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what _do_ you mean?”

Frank surges forward and grabs Mikey’s free arm, dragging him away from Brian and towards the back kitchen.

“Frank,” Brian calls.

“We need to talk. Alone.”

Alone in that kitchen Frank faces Mikey again. Mikey beats him to the punch.

“I don’t need another fucking lecture, Frank. You’ve given me plenty of them already.”

“This isn’t a lecture.”

“Then what-”

“Mikey! Just… Let me apologize.”

Mikey’s next remark dies in his throat. He wasn’t expecting that.

Frank cards his hands through his hair, tugging nervously at the end of the strands. “I don’t think I’ve said this, like ever, but you’re the brother I never had. I’ve always been an only child so when I joined you guys I sort of mentally adopted you as my brothers. I know that sounds weird-”

“We adopted you, too,” Mikey says because they did. Intentionally. Frank was the best thing to happen to Mikey and Gerard out in the Zones since they met Brian. He served as a constant and a joy in a largely inconsistent, joyless desert.

Frank smiles up at him and his eyes look watery. “So when you started drinking I couldn’t handle it. Like I should have been able to help you, because that’s what brothers do, right? But I couldn’t do anything and I was afraid. I was so afraid you’d kill yourself that every time you drank I got angry and I lashed out at you and I shouldn’t have done that. Christ, Mikes, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so nasty. I’m just terrified of losing you. I don’t know what I’d do if you died.”

Mikey doesn’t know what to say, but Frank is definitely tearing up so he drags him into a tight hug. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t realize how much I was hurting you. I didn’t care about anything but drinking. This is all my fault.”

“No, it’s not your fault. It’s BLI’s.”

Frank pulls away from the hug, wiping his eyes. “That’s why we’re going to see Dr. D without you because we need all the help we can get and if that means leaving you behind to babysit, then so be it.”

Frank salutes him. “See ya!”

He runs off, leaving Mikey scrambling after him.

*

“Are we going to do anything?” Grace asks, poking Mikey’s shoulder.

“No,” Mikey grunts.

“Are we going to talk?”

“No.”

“Hmmm,” Grace muses aloud. “Are you going to get angry and throw another car part?”

“No!” Mikey snaps, getting up so he can move away from her interrogative questions.

“Really?” She follows him. “Because it looks like you’re getting angry again.”

“I’m not angry.”

“You sound angry.”

“Well I’m not, okay?” Mikey shouts. Somewhere behind him Grace squeaks in alarm.

Mikey places his hands on the counter, clenching and unclenching his fists. He is angry, he’s fucking furious at being left out again, relegated to the role of semi-trustworthy babysitter. It’s not Grace’s fault though, she had no say in this situation. She’s just a kid and she’s probably just as lonely and bored as he is.

“I’m not angry,” he says again and this time his voice comes out steadier. “I’m just… I’m not angry at you. It’s just I-”

“Feel left out?” Grace offers.

Mikey nods.

“Me, too,” she says. “They don’t trust me because I’m ‘just a kid.’ They think I can’t handle myself, but I can!”

Mikey wants to say, _how the fuck would you know? You’ve never had to handle anything alone_ , but he doesn’t. Instead he holds out an arm and Grace comes up to him. She wraps her arms around his waist and buries her head in his stomach. She’s gotten taller, Mikey realizes as he hugs her back.

“You know what we should do?” Mikey asks. Grace looks up at him, expression hopeful.

“We should do something really cool without them and make them jealous.”

Grace smiles. “Yeah!”

*

“Wow, you suck at this,” Grace says, staring at the line of undamaged cans.

“Fuck off,” Mikey mutters then slaps his free hand over his mouth when he realizes what he said.

Grace laughs. “I hear you guys curse all the time. I’m used to it.”

Mikey sighs, he had a good lecture in mind about how cursing is bad, the same sort of lecture he was subjected to when he first started using curse words as a teen, but since he was the one doing the cursing it seems hypocritical.

Instead he takes aim at the first can and fires.

“Maybe we should get you a bigger target,” Grace suggests. “Like the diner.”

“If you don’t cut the sass I’ll use you as a target,” Mikey says, aiming again.

“I’d probably be perfectly safe then.”

Mikey should be annoyed, but it was such a good comeback he can’t help but laugh.

“You little twerp,” he jokes and, just because he can, wraps her in a one-armed hug.

“Okay, okay. Try again.” Grace pulls away. Despite all her jokes she takes the time to move a safe distance away before nodding at him.

He nods back and takes aim again. This time he closes his eyes and let’s himself just _be_. He feels the sun beating down on his head and the wind gently tugging at his clothes. He hears each movement as he shifts his feet, dragging them along the grainy sand. He shuffles until his legs feel perfectly steady then brings his free hand up to support his gun hand. When he finds a comfortable position he opens his eyes and fires.

“You did it!” Grace cheers.

Sure enough the first can in the row is gone. Mikey sees it rolling forlornly a few feet away an obvious hole at just about its center.

“Do you want to do another one?” Grace asks.

Mikey doesn’t reply, just takes aim and fires again.

Again Grace cheers.

Before he can contemplate his luck Mikey turns his attention to the rest of the cans in the row. He fires rapidly until all the cans have been scattered.

“How did you do that?” Grace asks, awed.

Mikey shrugs. “I guess I just found my trick.”

“Your trick?”

Mikey nods. “My brother, Gerard. He’s the best sharpshooter in the Zones. He could never say how he was so good. There were no techniques he could ever teach me he just _knew_ how to shoot. He said he had a ‘trick,’ something he could do so that he could always fire straight. He never said what his trick was, just that I needed to find mine in order to shoot like he did.”

“So you found your trick.”

Mikey nods, smiling. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

*

After practice they retreat to the diner, relaxing in a shaded part near the counter and listening to the dueling radio stations.

Dr. D is playing more AC/DC, Mikey’s certain by now that they’re the DJ’s favorite band. He’s a little surprised when Grace starts singing along.

“You know this song?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Dr. D plays it a lot.”

“You’re very good,” he says, because it’s true. Her voice is light and not very strong, but she hits each note with the ease of natural talent.

Grace blushes and ducks her head.

“I mean it,” Mikey insists, nudging her shoulder. “Keep singing.”

Her cheeks turn even redder, but she picks up singing again and continues until the song is through.

When it’s finished Mikey turns the volume down so he can listen to BLI’s channel. Fact News is talking about the desert weather - sunny with a one hundred percent chance of radiation - but not much else of importance. Mikey turns the volume up, hoping to catch some important news.

Suddenly Grace gasps. Mikey spins around and Grace is doubled over, gripping her head.

“Grace? You okay?”

“Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow!” She chants.

“What’s wrong?”

“My _head_!” she screams in a tone that says _you idiot._

“Do you need something?” Do they have painkillers? With the bag of meds Frank and Ray brought back they probably do. He races to the cabinet to look for them.

“Turn it off!” Grace screams.

“What?”

“Turn it _off_!”

Mikey runs back to the counter and fumbles with the ancient radio, clicking the volume off. He turns off the new radio as well, for good measure.

Grace sighs in relief and collapses to the floor. Mikey barely manages to get his hand under her head before it hits the grimy linoleum.

“Grace? Are you okay?” Mikey brushes her hair out of her face. “Gracie?”

Grace groans and curls in on herself. “Quiet, please.”

“Okay.” Mikey pulls her into his lap and holds her close as she drifts off.

*

After a nap and a few painkillers they risk turning on Dr. Death-Defying’s station. No matter what volume they turn it to it never affects Grace’s head like before.

They leave BLI’s channel off.

*

A few hours after the incident, there’s movement on Route Guano. Given the position of the diner on the flat plains Mikey spots the vehicle long before it arrives and he watches its erratic approach with raygun in hand.

The dark van’s driving is dangerously uncoordinated. It drives the center of the Route and weaves constantly, picking up and losing speed without reason. In the last few yards to the diner it actually picks up speed and Mikey half expects it to continue on down the Route to fuck knows where. Instead it comes to an abrupt and screeching halt in the packed dirt parking lot of the diner.

Mikey leaves Grace hidden inside and cautiously approaches the van, gun raised. When the driver stumbles out of the vehicle Mikey almost drops his weapon in shock.

“ _Patrick_?”

It’s him. The Runner known as Blue Phoenix is missing his trademark royal blue fedora and his matching sportscoat is balled up and held against his side, the brilliant blue turning black with blood. Patrick reaches out with his free hand which is oozing blood from a gash on his palm.

“Please,” Patrick gasps. “Help me.”

Mikey holsters his gun and races to Patrick, catching him just as his legs give out. Mikey scoops him up like a child, pressing Patrick’s injured side against his stomach to keep the pressure on the wound and stave off the bleeding.

“What happened?” Mikey asks, urgently.

“Don’t open the trunk,” Patrick says.

“What?” Mikey looks at Patrick to try to comprehend the cryptic instruction, but he’s already unconscious.

*

“Is he going to die?” Grace asks. She hands Mikey the roll of gauze.

“He’s not going to die,” Mikey insists, unwinding the gauze and wrapping in carefully around Patrick’s middle.

“Are you sure?”

_No_ , Mikey thinks, but doesn’t say. Instead he busies himself with checking his patch job and then Grace’s gauze wrap on Patrick’s hand. They both look good, not too loose and not too tight, but they are both already becoming stained with red. Mikey isn’t sure how much blood Patrick’s lost, nor how much he can lose before he dies, but Mikey’s shirt and hands are already smeared with it and its metallic smell permeates the room.

“Brian’ll be able to help, he’ll be back soon.” Grace sounds frantic.

“Yeah,” Mikey says, because what else is he going to say? He has no idea when Brian will be back or if anything can be done at this point. With Patrick patched up to the best of their abilities, however, there’s not much to do but wait and see what happens.

“What was that?” Mikey asks. They both glance around frantically, looking for the source of the sound.

“Out there!” Grace gasps, pointing out the front door.

Quietly the pair move to a front booth and peer out the window.

The van jostles slightly in time with the sound.

“It’s coming from the back of the van!” Grace says.

Mikey feels his heart leap into his throat. _Don’t open the trunk._ That had been Patrick one instruction and now whatever was in there wanted out.

_This can’t be good_ , Mikey thinks.

*

Mikey’s being a coward, he’ll admit it. He’ll also admit that he has no desire to face whatever attacked Patrick, who is what he’s decided is in the back of the van.

He has no idea why Patrick would lock his would-be killer in his only get-away vehicle and drive across the desert to the Killjoy’s diner, but without being able to question Patrick Mikey decides that that’s what happened. It’s his only way to make sense of Patrick's instruction.

Patrick’s alive, at least. The bleeding stopped and Mikey has risked peaking at the wounds under the gauze. They’re cuts, not raygun shots which would have cauterized themselves, as if Patrick had been in a hand-to-hand fight with someone wielding a knife. It’s abnormal. Most people these days, Runners and BLI operatives alike, use rayguns. Patrick’s attacker must have been desperate for a weapon.

“Mikey? The thumps are slowing down.”

Not surprising. The prisoner is probably baking in the dark van.

“I’ll check soon,” Mikey assures her.

“Okay,” Grace says, still watching the van cautiously.

*

It can’t wait anymore. Whatever’s in the van, if it’s human, won’t last much longer.

Mikey approaches the back doors of the van slowly, gun trained on the vehicle the entire time. The back is padlocked shut, as if someone created a makeshift solution for the built in lock no longer working. Mikey curses quietly. He reaches out and jiggles the lock, but it stays in place. Another thunk rocks the van as the prisoner hits the door, causing the lock to rattle in place. Mikey jumps back and aims at the doors, but they remain in place.

Mikey needs to find the padlock key. Deciding that it’s probably with the van key he rounds the van and finds a key ring on the ground next to the open front door. Holding the keys gingerly to avoid the blood coating them Mikey returns to the back and pops the lock.

Weapon at the ready Mikey opens one rusted metal door.

“Please don’t shoot us,” a hoarse voice begs.

Mikey hesitates, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the van. When they do he gasps.

“Pete?”

“Please,” Pete repeats. He’s holding one hand up, palm open. Mikey looks for his other one and spots it handcuffed to the handhold. The handcuff explains how he remained trapped in the van even though there’s clearly open access to the front of the van and the open driver’s door.

On the other side of the van Mikey spots Joe, similarly handcuffed. Both men are covered in sweat and look positively pathetic. Not the killers Mikey thought would be in the van

“Can you let us out?” Pete asks.

Mikey doesn’t answer. There has to be a reason Pete and Joe are locked in here. A reason Patrick wanted them to remain locked in here.

Pete kicks something and Mikey jumps back as a knife slides across the van floor and drops to the dirt. It’s covered in blood.

“That’s our only weapon,” Pete says. “I promise. Please, it’s so hot in here.”

“I’m going to keep you handcuffed,” Mikey informs him. He flips through the key ring, looking for handcuff keys.

“You should.”

Mikey pauses and shoots Pete a look.

“I’ll explain when we’re out, I promise.”

One at a time Mikey removes them from the van and walks them inside. He chains them to the foot rail on the bar, looping the chain through the bar so he can cuff both their hands. Both move with silent complacency.

When they’re settled Pete looks over to Patrick, sleeping on a nearby cot.

“How is he?” he asks.

“Alive,” Mikey says. “Now talk.”

“Can we get water first?”

“You’ll get water when I’m satisfied by your answers.”

“Mikey-”

“My friend just showed up on my doorstep bleeding profusely. His two _best friends_ handcuffed like criminals. I need to know what’s going on and I need to know _now_!”

Pete and Joe flinch back from his yell, but Pete gives in and begins explaining.

*

The three of them had been listening to Fact News. Living in Zone One means that they have a good view of the City.

“There’s more movement,” Pete explains. “It used to be you could go days or weeks without seeing anything leave or enter the City, but these last few months? Constant traffic, day and night. It isn’t just BLI either. Civilians are migrating to the desert in numbers I’ve never seen before.”

Zone One residents were the first to start listening to Fact News, hoping to piece together answers from the limited reports. Pet’s group hasn’t turned off BLI’s channel since they found it.

Today had been no different from any other day in the Zones. Joe was changing the oil in the van while Pete and Patrick were repairing wiring on a light fixture in the hideout.

“I don’t really remember what happened next,” Pete admits. “Just that one minute I was getting something from the toolbox and the next minute Patrick was yelling and we were fighting.”

Between blackouts and memory lapses Pete remembers grabbing a knife and turning on Patrick. Patrick calling for Joe. Pete’s blade slicing into Patrick’s side. Patrick walloping him in the head with the grip of his gun.

Joe recalls Patrick calling for his aid. After entering the hideout, though, his memory is completely blank.

“We came out of it on the road,” Pete finishes. “I tried to tell him that we were okay, that I wouldn’t hurt him anymore, but he wouldn’t listen. I guess I don’t blame him.”

“Okay,” Mikey says.

He collects a bottle of water and brings it back, tipping it to Pete’s lips so he can drink. Pete gulps the liquid hungrily. Mikey pulls the bottle back before Pete can drink too much and make himself sick. He repeats the process with Joe.

“So you believe us?” Pete asks.

“Yes.”

“And you know it wasn’t our fault?”

Mikey doesn’t respond.

“Please believe me,” Pete begs. “I would never hurt Patrick. Not willingly.”

Mikey sighs. “Whatever you say.”

*

When the others return Grace races out to meet them. Mikey remains in his guard spot, situated between Patrick and where Pete and Joe are chained so that he can see all of them.

Moments later Brian rushes in, followed closely by the others. He makes a beeline for Patrick, checking him over quickly. Mikey waits until Brian calls him over.

“You’ve done well, help me stitch him up?”

Mikey nods and retrieves the med kit.

*

Thirty-nine stitches later Patrick is finally patched up properly. They move him to the back kitchen where he can be in the quiet and shade. Mikey fills them in on Pete’s story of the events and they settle outside to discuss without Pete or Joe listening in.

“Do you believe them?” Frank asks.

Mikey nods. “I think they’re being controlled, or that they were being controlled. I think they’re Annihilators, just like Gerard.”

“That’s a hell of a claim to make,” Ray hedges at the same time Frank says “So if we find out what’s controlling them and stop it, we can save Gerard, too.”

Mikey agrees with Frank. “That’s what I was thinking.”

“But how are they being controlled?” Ray asks.

“Grace?” Mikey turns to the girl. “Why don’t you tell your father what happened to you. With the radio?”

Grace does. Her explanation of how the radio transmission hurt her had both Ray and Brian scrambling towards her, asking a million questions and watching her carefully.

“I think they’re using the Fact News transmission as a trigger,” Mikey explains. “To activate the Annihilators.”

“Are you saying BLI turned my daughter into a killing machine?” Ray demands.

“I’m saying she was held in the same facility that turned Pete and Joe into-” he waves his hands towards the diner “-that. I also think they were listening to the same transmission Grace and I were. Everyone is listening to it, aren’t they? BLI is giving away just enough to get all the desert Runners tuning in-”

“So they can use a subliminal message to trigger their experiments in the desert,” Frank finishes.

Mikey nods.

“But how would they control the boys? Or Gerard? When he attacked you there was no radio playing. And why didn’t Grace get violent?”

“There’s something they didn’t get to with Grace,” Mikey suggests. “They didn’t have her for long.”

“That’s right!” Frank agrees. “They had Pete and Joe for weeks. They only had Grace for a couple days.”

“And they’ve had Gerard for months,” Ray adds. “So what could they have done?”

Brian scratches his head thoughtfully. “It has to be something stronger than subliminal suggestion. Something that doesn’t rely on the trigger, the radio. Something… physical.”

Brian starts for the diner, the others trailing behind him.

“Pete, get up!” he calls. “Mikey, unchain him.”

Uncuffed and standing Pete faces Brian nervously. “Doctor, I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t speak,” Brian instructs. “Remove your shirt.”

Pete complies without question.

Brian begins examining him, using a flashlight to study Pete’s eyes and inside his nose and mouth. Finding nothing Brian moves on to Pete’s chest and back.

“Botched tattoo?” Brian asks, running his hands down Pete’s back.

“Yeah.” Pete shivers under the touch and Mikey quietly seethes. He’s jealous of the contact and the fact that Pete seems to be enjoying it.

“When?”

“Sixteen? When I was underage, hence disreputable parlor, hence scarring.”

“So nothing recent?” Brian asks. His hands are still on Pete’s back and Mikey is considering reminding him of this.

“Not since Before.”

Brian nods and moves on to Pete’s arms. “What’s this?” Brian points at a white line in Pete’s inner elbow.

“A scar?”

“When did it happen?”

Pete shrugs. “I dunno.”

Brian begins prodding at it.

Pete watches him. “Um, uh, what are you doing? Wait, ow! Why are you- Ow!”

“There’s something in here.”

“There’s something in my arm?” Pete sounds freaked out, Mikey doesn’t blame him.

“We need to get it out.”

“No, wait,” Pete gasps, “what’s going on?”

Mikey decides to cut him a break. “We think BLI is controlling you, using something they placed in your arm.”

“And you can get it out?” Pete is looking to Mikey pleadingly.

Mikey nods.

“Safely?”

Mikey nods again. “Brian can.”

“And this will stop me from attacking people?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Pete says. “Do it.”

*

 

Mikey wipes the blood off of the small pellet, revealing the BLI logo.

“So this is it?” he asks.

“Yup.” Brian’s seated next to him watching as Frank and Ray carefully open the second pellet, the one they removed from Joe’s arm.

“This is all it takes to control a human?”

“It would seem so.”

“That’s fucked up.”

Brian nods.

Pete and Joe are seated in chairs nearby, watching the dissection closely. It was unanimously decided that the two could remain uncuffed and so far they have done nothing violent. Mikey is sure that they aren’t a threat anymore.

“We need to find Gerard now,” Mikey says, “and remove the thing from his arm.”

“That’s easier said than done, Mikey,” Brian warns.

“But we can do it.”

Brian places a gentle kiss to Mikey’s temple. “Sure.”

*

“Nothing?” Mikey asks.

Frank shrugs “Man, I work with cars. This is light years beyond me.”

Ray nods. “I’ve never seen anything this advanced. Not even from Before. I can’t even begin to understand this.”

“So we have this advance technology that can control people and we don’t know how it works?” Mikey looks to Brian pleadingly.

Brian throws up his hands. “Hey, I work with humans, not machines. But here’s what I do know, we remove the thing and they’re no longer violent. Right now, that’s enough for me.”

Mikey and Frank both sit up straighter, sharing a look. Mikey dares ask. “Do you think we could?”

Brian nods. “Let’s go find the next Annihilator.”

*

Hunting an Annihilator is too dangerous to bring Grace, and Patrick is still injured, so Ray packs them both in the van and takes them to Dr. D’s station. Brian was the one to suggest moving them, pointing out that they were intending to bring known killer back to the diner.

Patrick wakes before the move so Mikey’s group gives the three friends some space to themselves before everyone heads out. Pete and Joe spend the time hugging and apologizing to Patrick while he insists that he’s fine and that he forgives them.

“Pete!” Mikey hears the exasperation in Patrick's voice. “It’s okay, I’ll be fine. I know it wasn’t you.”

“I love you.” It sounds like those weren’t the words Pete had intended to say, but now that they’re out he grips Patrick’s hand as if to emphasize what he said.

Patrick sighs. “Pete…”

“It’s true,” Pete insists.

“I know,” Patrick agrees. “I love you, too, man. I just-”

Pete leans down and Mikey expects to see them kiss, but instead Pete places a gentle kiss to Patrick’s cheek. “I’m your best friend, I know.”

Patrick nods quickly. “Right.”

Pete gives him a quick hug then pulls back so Joe can hug him as well.

“If either of you assholes dies,” Patrick says, pointing to them each in turn. “I’ll drag you back from Hell and kill you myself. And you-” he points at Mikey, who quickly tries to appear as if he wasn’t eavesdropping “-keep them alive. I’m holding you responsible, got it?”

Mikey nods, startled with Patrick’s aggressiveness.

Patrick drops his glare and smiles softly. “Thanks. For everything.”

“Anytime,” Mikey assures him.

Ray approaches with a bag over his shoulder. “Ready to go?”

“Yes.”

Ray helps Patrick into the passenger seat then returns to where the others are by the Trans Am.

“You guys going to be okay?”

Frank nods. “We’ll be fine.”

“I could come with you guys.”

“No,” Brian insists. “Patrick still needs someone and your daughter needs you.”

Ray doesn’t disagree. They say their goodbyes and the van drives off.

“Are we ready to go?” Brian asks the group.

Everyone nods.

*

“There.” Mikey points at the bar that looks more like a condemned barn than the popular watering hole it is.

“Are you sure?” Frank asks, angling the Trans Am towards the building. The jeep follows behind them.

Mikey nods. He’s not sure how he knows, but he feels it like he feels the morning sun through blackout curtains. There’s no visible sign that this should be the next target, just a feeling Mikey has deep in his gut.

“I trust you,” Frank says.

The words catch Mikey off-guard and he blinks at Frank for a few moments before he can respond. “Thank you.”

“You were the only one who didn’t give up,” Frank continues. “I gave up-”

“Frank…”

“-I let him die, in my mind. I thought it was better, I thought you were being stupid, so I just gave up.”

No,” Mikey says, “you didn’t give up.”

Frank pulls the car to a stop. “I-”

“You didn’t give up because you’re here, right now. You haven’t seen him yet, but you trust me on this because you haven’t given up.” Mikey climbs out of the car. “Now come on.”

Frank follows him.

*

They hide the vehicles where they cannot be seen from the bar and head in just as the sun begins to set.

The bar is popular, not as much as Annie and Allie’s, but most tables are full and the counter is packed with patrons.

Brian gets them all drinks and hands out the cups of seltzer water to everyone. ”No drinking tonight, we all need to be alert.”

“People are going to die,” Joe says. “This place is packed and if he shows up they’ll all be in the line of fire. We shouldn’t be doing a standoff in here.”

“People will die anyway,” Mikey says. “His directive is probably to kill as many Runners as possible, he won’t submit to a standoff in an empty desert.”

“Isn’t he you brother? How can you talk about him like that?”

Mikey shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant, but a lump forms in his throat. “I try to separate them. Like the Annihilator and Gerard are two different people.”

“How’s that working out for you?” Pete asks. The question doesn’t come across as mean, more exploratory and Pete gaze is sympathetic.

Mikey tries to force out a chuckle, but it sounds more like a squeak. Brian grabs his hand, threads their fingers together, and squeezes gently. Mikey squeezes back.

*

The sun is gone completely and many patrons are well on their way to hammered when it begins. Frank hears it first, the sound of a car pulling up. Unlike most of the desert vehicles it sounds new and well taken care of. The instant the engine sound cuts out Frank is on his feet, retrieving his gun. The others follow his lead.

The Annihilator enters the same way he did at Annie and Allie’s, kicking the flimsy door wide open. Mikey was prepared, gun at the ready, but the instant the door slams open blind panic envelops him and his gun clatters to the ground. Someone calls his Runner name, but all Mikey can focus on is the person entering the bar, his brother striding in.

“Kobra?” someone says again. Then Gerard is looking at them and Mikey can’t breathe. It’s Gerard, plain as day, with the chocolate brown hair he was born with and the defiant chin raise he developed at college and the unique firing pose he taught himself while practice firing on empty cans, but his face is so different looking at it is like being punched in the gut. The hazel eyes are the same and the upturned nose, but the expression is so devoid of emotion it hardly looks human.

Mikey’s on his knees, he doesn’t remember how he got there or why his eyes are closed, but he can’t seem to bring himself to care. There are sounds all around him, bad painful noises, and he just wants them to stop. He reaches up to cover his ears, but there’s something in the way, hands. Mikey opens his eyes and Brian is there in front of him. He’s holding Mikey’s head in his hands and talking to him, but Mikey can’t make out what he’s saying. Mikey closes his eyes, but Brian shakes him so he opens them again.

“Mikey!” The word is like an electric shock and something in his head that was shut down wakes up. “Come back, Mikey, I know you’re there! You need to pull it together! Come back, Mikey!”

“I’m here,” Mikey says, because suddenly he is. He’s kneeling on a dusty wooden floor with Brian who looks like he’s about to cry and there’s a table tipped over next to them, acting as a barricade between them and the gunfire.

“Gerard,” Mikey gasps and pulls away. He spies his gun lying on the floor nearby and snatches it up before peeking over the table. On the other side Mikey sees bodies, some lying on the floor, others draped over furniture. He doesn’t give himself a chance to dwell on them as he spots Gerard on the far side of the room across from him stands Frank. Frank is hunched over, gripping his side, and his gun points at the floor.

“Gerard,” Frank pleads, “I know you're in there. Please come back.”

Gerard fires and the shot hits Frank’s bicep, his gun slips from his hand. He doesn’t seem to notice as he takes a step towards Gerard.

“C’mon, Gerard.” Frank sounds like he’s crying now. “This isn’t you, you wouldn’t do this.”

Frank steps forward again. This time Gerard steps back, like he’s trying to put distance between them. Frank takes another step and stumbles, falling to his knees in front of Gerard.

Frank looks up and even from this distance Mikey can tell he’s giving Gerard his best puppy eyes. “You’re not going to kill me, Gerard. You would never do that.”

Gerard raises his gun.

Mikey fires.

*

Mikey runs to the Trans Am cradling Frank in his arms, holding him close so he can feel the slow breaths and the steady heartbeats. The signs that Frank is still alive.

Distantly he’s aware that the others are following with Gerard, but he can’t think about Gerard now because he has to stay calm. He has to stay calm because the idiot in his arms decided to play the fucking martyr and now Mikey has to make sure he stays alive because Frank can’t die. He just can’t.

When they had first found Frank, injured from some shrapnel from an explosion that Frank himself had created, Mikey hadn’t been too interested. He’d seen the Runner for all the effort and resources it would take to heal him. Gerard had ignored him, pointing out that they were only alive because of Brian’s Good Samaritan actions, and it wouldn’t hurt them to do the same.

When they had finally gotten Frank patched up and were certain he wasn’t about to die on them Gerard had stated firmly “we’re keeping him.” And that was that.

Now Mikey needs Frank to live not just because he is a valuable mechanic, but because Frank is Mikey’s brother.

He’ll be damned if he loses another brother.

Mikey bundles Frank into the backseat and yanks the keys from his pocket. Starting the car he hits the gas and races for the diner.

*

They get back to the diner in record time. Mikey scoops Frank up and lays him carefully on a table. As he collects med supplies the parallels between this situation and their last battle in the City strike him. Here Frank is again, lying on the table injured from some stupid last-ditch move.

The difference is that this time Mikey could have prevented it, but he froze. If he hadn’t panicked, or whatever the hell it was, he could have stopped Gerard and then Frank wouldn’t have gotten shot. This is all Mikey’s fault.

Frank’s bicep wound is cauterized, so Mikey wraps it. His side wound is deeper, parts of the area are cauterized, but some of it has split and is oozing blood and a clear discharge that Mikey has seen before, though he doesn’t recall its name. It’s a sign of healing, of the wound scabbing over.

“You’re going to be okay,” Mikey says.

He gets Frank’s side patched up and carefully settled him on his cot. Frank’s eyes flutter open a few times, but he doesn’t speak. Mikey tucks him under a thin sheet and lets him rest.

*

From where Mikey is perched on the counter he can see the jeep approaching on the horizon. They must have been further behind than he realized, he was expecting them to show a while ago.

“You shot him.” Mikey looks down and Frank is staring up at him. Frank has been awake for a while now, laying in a quiet daze or dozing off for a few minutes at a time, but this is the first time he’s spoken.

“Yes,” Mikey says, because there’s no point in denying it.

“I didn’t think he was going to shoot me. Gerard would never-”

“Gerard wouldn’t,” Mikey agrees, “but did you see his eyes? That wasn’t my brother, not really.”

“Sometimes,” Frank says. Mikey waits for more until he realizes that Frank is struggling to move, wincing in pain. He hops off the counter and helps Frank to a more comfortable position. When Frank is settled he begins again. “Sometimes it was him. I could see it, in his eyes, Gerard was there and he didn’t want to hurt me.”

Mikey believes him. He remembers the moment right before Frank fell when Gerard stepped back instead of shooting. There’s also the fact that Frank is alive when Gerard had easily killed others with just one shot.

“He wasn’t strong enough, though,” Mikey points out. “He was _going_ to kill you. I had to do something.”

“Did you kill him?” Frank asks.

“I don’t know.”

“How do you not know? Where is he?”

“The others were bringing him back. They're here now.”

The jeep pulls up and Brian climbs out of the trunk.

“Frank?” He calls, entering the diner.

“Here,” Frank calls back quietly.

Brian sighs in relief. “How are you, man?”

“I got shot. Twice.”

“I know,” Brian says. “I saw.”

“Y’think I’ll have some cool scars?” Frank asks.

Brian rolls his eyes. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

Approaching them Brian drops something into Mikey’s palm. It’s a pellet, just like the ones they got from Pete and Joe.

“He’s alive. Shot to the shoulder, but he’ll be fine.”

Mikey sighs, feeling the tension melt from his shoulders.

Joe pokes his head into the diner. “Um, he’s not coming out.”

“What?” Brian asks.

“He, uh, said he won’t come out. Also, he wants us to leave his handcuff on.”

“I’ll go get him,” Mikey volunteers.

*

Gerard is in the back of the jeep wedged between the side and the stretcher, hands tucked behind his back where Mikey assumes they’re in handcuffs. His white shirt is cut away on one sleeve and there’s one bandage wrapped around his arm and another around his shoulder. It must hurt to have his arms held back with the shoulder injury.

Mikey tries to climb into the space as well, but he can’t fit so he settles on the stretcher. “Hey, you.”

Gerard looks up. “Mikey?”

Mikey smiles. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“I-” Gerard’s voice cracks and the sound is like a knife to Mikey’s heart. “I thought I killed you. At the other place I thought I- I- and then tonight you were there, but you fell and I thought I must’ve shot you, but I don’t remember firing at you and then Frank-” Gerard’s voice cracks again and tears spill out of his eyes.

“Frank’s alive.” Mikey cuts in.

Gerard looks at him with wide-eyed hope. “Really?”

“Yeah, you didn’t kill either of us,” Mikey insists. “Your aim sucks, dude.”

Gerard barks out a startled laugh and then he’s crying even worse. Crying and laughing like a dozen bottled emotions are spilling out of him. Mikey decides he can’t hold back anymore and crawls into Gerard’s space as much as he can, pulling Gerard into a hug.

“You can’t.” Gerard tries to push Mikey away. “I’m dangerous. I-”

“Not anymore.” Mikey reaches behind Gerard and unlocks one of the cuffs. Gerard gasps in pain as he moves his injured shoulder, but as soon as he gets his arm to a comfortable position he pulls Mikey back into a fierce one-armed hug.

“I’m sorry,” Gerard sobs. “I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry.”

Mikey squeezes him tighter. “I know. It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

*

After Mikey explains about the pellet and everything they know about it he finally manages to coax Gerard out of the jeep.

Once inside Gerard heads straight for Frank, calling his name.

“Gerard!” Frank smiles brightly and reaches out with his uninjured arm. Gerard drops down in front of him, dragging him into a hug and- _oh!_

“Did you know about this?” Brian asks, raising an eyebrow.

“ _No!_ ” Mikey squawks, covering his eyes, now forever scarred by the sight of his brother and best friend making out.

“Oh my god!” He grabs a pillow off Ray’s mattress and lobs it at Gerard’s head. “Really, guys?”

Gerard, for his part, looks sheepish but Frank smiles a ridiculous shit-eating grin.

“Consider this payback for making me watch you make out with Brian,” Frank says before grabbing Gerard by the collar and dragging him down. Gerard loses his balance and throws a hand out to catch himself. It happens to be his injured arm and the move makes him cry out in pain. Brian steps in and starts dragging Gerard away yelling about how “you are both injured! Stop acting like hormonal rabbits!”

Mikey joins in with Pete and Joe who are on the floor laughing like hyenas.

*

The group spends the afternoon sleeping off the stress of the night before. Most of them do anyway. Mikey can’t seem to relax, he keeps waking up every few minutes in a blind panic that only settles after he checks that Gerard is, in fact, there. The fifth time he jolts awake Brian catches him and drags him back down. He drapes himself half on top of Mikey, pressing him into the mattress.

“I swear to God, Mikey, if you do not go the fuck to sleep I _will_ use a sedative,” Brian grumbles.

“I can’t help it,” Mikey whispers back.

Brian raises his head. “Why?”

“What if I wake up and he’s not there anymore?”

Brian blinks slowly.

“I know it doesn’t make sense.”

Brian sits up. Mikey pulls himself into a sitting position as well.

“You know we saved him, right?” Brian asks. “You know we got him back and pulled that thing out of his arm? BLI doesn’t control him anymore.”

“I know, it’s just-”

“Okay, get up.”

Mikey looks at Brian questioningly, but Brian waves him up. Once Mikey has crawled to his feet Brian grabs the mattress and starts dragging it.

“Okay,” he says, setting the mattress in a new spot. “Lay down.”

Mikey raises an eyebrow, but does as he’s told.

“Now look.”

Mikey turns to look where Brian points and sees Gerard and Frank where they are sleeping with their mattresses pressed together.

“Now you don’t have to get up to check on him. You can see him from right here.”

A lump forms in Mikey’s throat and he has to swallow it back down. Brian understands. He isn’t judging Mikey for being crazy.

“Thank you.”

Brian kisses him. “Now try to go back to sleep.”

He lies down as well, burying his face in Mikey’s chest.

“You know how to talk to people, how to help them,” Mikey says.

“It’s what I do.” Brian stretches and throws an arm across Mikey’s stomach.

“It’s also what you did. In the City.” Brian freezes, but doesn’t respond. Mikey continues. “You aren’t a medical doctor, not like you let people believe, are you? You never told me what you did in Battery City.”

“It doesn’t matter what I did in Battery City,” Brian says finally, not lifting his head. “I left. Just like every other Runner I made a decision and I left. And just like every other Runner what I do now is what matters more.”

“But you aren’t a medical doctor,” Mikey presses. “When we first met Pete he told me-”

“No,” Brian cuts him off. He sits up again and finally meets Mikey eyes. “I’m a psychologist. But I do have medical training. I’m not just guessing I do actually know what I’m doing.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“And when Pete knew me I was a very different person. I’ve changed a lot since then. Do you remember when we first met?”

“You saved my life.”

“And you saved mine, too, Mikey,” Brian admits. “In your own way. Now can we please stop talking about it and get some sleep?”

“Why don’t you want to talk about it?”

“And why _do_ you want to talk about it?” Brian groans. “I don’t interrogate you about your past.”

“I want to know you,” Mikey says.

Brian cards his fingers through Mikey’s hair and then pulls him in for another kiss. “You do know me, better than you seem to realize. Now, sleep.”

Mikey relents and lets Brian push him back down to the mattress. He runs his fingers though Brian’s hair, eliciting a contented hum.

“I still love you,” Mikey admits.

Brian’s breathing evens out.

*

It feels like Mikey has only just closed his eyes when someone shakes him awake. “Hhhhhnnnggggg…” he groans.

“Fuckin’ what?” Brian snaps, shoving off whoever is shaking them.

“Wake up!” It’s Joe and he sounds frantic. “You’ve got to hear this.”

Through sheer force of will Mikey hauls himself up and shuffles after Joe into the main dining area where Pete is perched on a stool listening intently to the radio, tension gripping his shoulders tight.

Mikey slumps on the counter and trains one ear to the radio. Dr. D is on and it’s the strangest report Mikey’s ever heard. The words are coming in unintelligible chunks, as if the signal is going in and out. There’s a strange pop and - is that gunfire?

Suddenly Mikey is very awake. He pulls himself upright and turns to Joe “wake the others” to Brian “get the med kit” to Pete “help him.”

While the others are scrambling to do as he says Mikey races through the diner, collecting any extra weapons he can find. He locates some rusty box cutters and a few ancient rayguns, so old their model type is obsolete. He hesitates over the C-4 before taking a small portion and a couple of blasting caps. As Mikey throws the last of the weapons into the trunk of the Trans Am he realizes he didn’t see the pink raygun anywhere.

*

“How long?” Gerard asks. He’s in the backseat of the Trans Am and it feels wrong to see him not driving the car or riding shotgun.

“About a half hour,” Frank replies.

“You think they can last that long?”

“They’re going to have to,” Mikey says.

Gerard slumps back in his seat.

It’s not just Gerard’s position in the car that makes it feel like something’s off, it’s everything. Gerard has cried more in the past day than he has since their grandmother died, it’s disconcerting if understandable. More than that, though, Gerard hasn’t been very _Gerard_. When they woke him up he hadn’t taken charge of the situation like he would have before, instead he’d just asked Mikey for instructions and followed him quietly on the hunt for weapons and ammo. It’s the quiet that’s the worst, Mikey decides. Gerard has always been talkative and opinionated, but since getting him back Mikey hasn’t heard him say more than a few sentences at a time and he barely speaks unless spoken to directly.

And now he’s slumped in the backseat absentmindedly picking at his fingers, his trademark yellow raygun lying untouched on the seat next to him.

As if he can feel Mikey watching him he glances up and raises his eyebrows questioningly. At least their eyebrow language hasn’t changed.

Mikey pulls his eyebrows down in concern. _Are you okay?_

Gerard creases his brows a little. _I don’t know what you’re talking about._

_Really? C’mon_.

Gerard breaks eye contact, glancing out the window to avoid Mikey’s stare. “‘M fine,” he mumbles.

“What?” Frank asks.

“Nothing,” the brothers respond in unison.

Frank glances at Mikey and then at Gerard through the rearview mirror. “Fine, do your freaky brother mind-meld thing.”

Gerard laughs, it’s just a small chuckle but for a second he looks like he’s back to normal.

*

Mikey thought the threat might have been a few Dracs, or maybe one last Annihilator. He’s not prepared for the army that comes into view as they approach the station. White and black BLI vans and cars, at least a dozen, are scattered around the radio station. The station, that Frank tells them was formerly a police station, is completely surrounded by Dracs. The building is the sturdiest Mikey’s ever seen in the Zones, built of solid sandy-colored bricks and barricaded tight against the monochrome army.

Mikey gets out of the car and approaches the army slowly, gun raised. Behind him car doors open and shut as the rest of his group races to follow him.

“Kobra,” Brian says, catching Mikey by the hem of his shirt and pulling him up short. “What are you doing?”

“Yes, indeed, _Kobra_ ,” A gravelly voice says from within the ranks of the Dracs. “What _are_ you doing?”

Footsteps crunch in the dust and Mikey takes an involuntary step back, bumping into someone. Korse steps out from the army and strides forward, pale head held high.

“ _Korse_ ,” Mikey growls.

A malicious grin splits Korse’s face and he takes a flourished bow. “I’m so glad you remember my name, Kobra Kid. But why are you the one talking? Where is your Party Poison? I know you got him back.” Korse makes a show of looking around the group before pointing at something over Mikey’s shoulder. “There he is! I hardly recognized him without his… _unique_ hairstyle.”

Mikey glances over his shoulder and sees Gerard hunched behind him, like he’s trying to make himself smaller. Korse laughs and the sound makes Gerard flinch.

_He did this to you_ , Mikey thinks. Of course he did, who else would be responsible for a BLI operative in the Zones if not Korse. He had Gerard captured, tortured, and turned into a killing machine. It’s all Korse’s fault.

Mikey glares at Korse. “I’m going to _kill_ you.”

Korse’s eyes widen, as if the vehemence of Mikey’s words caught him off guard, but a moment later he’s smiling again. “Oh, I hoped you’d all be in a fighting mood. You see, I have a new… _pet_ and I need to give him some exercise. So, I thought, what better way to give him exercise than to set him loose on the Fabulous Killjoys? He had the chance to run around inside before you got here, but that was no fun. Bring him out!”

“This can’t be good,” Brian mutters.

The ranks of Dracs part and another person steps through.

“No,” Pete gasps.

“Yes,” Korse says, placing his hands on the person’s shoulders and pushing him forward. “A little too colorful for my taste, but as a prototype he’ll have to do.”

“Is that?” Mikey asks, but he doesn’t have to, the tattoos are unmistakable.

“Andy,” Joe whispers.

Andy, the Runner known as Young Volcano, steps forward. He’s wearing a plain white t-shirt and white pants and a blank stare.

“No,” Pete repeats. “It can’t be.”

“It is,” Mikey says. Though he didn’t know Andy for very long, the Runner and the tattoos decorating his body are unmistakable.

Pete turns to Mikey with a pleading look. “But we buried him. I swear to God, we fucking put him in a grave. He was-”

Pete’s words cut off with a choked gasp. He drops to his knees, shocked into silence by the raygun shot to his side.

“Pete!” Joe calls, running to his friend. He puts himself as a shield between Pete and Andy, who lowers his smoking raygun.

“That was just a warning shot,” Korse calls. “You had better watch my pet more carefully.”

Korse steps up to Andy and whispers into his ear.

“What are we going to do?” Joe asks. “I can’t fight him. He’s my best friend.”

Mikey dares to glance away from the pair and notices that his group is looking to him. Everyone from Gerard and Frank to Joe and even Pete, who is using Brian to stabilize himself as he stands. They’re all looking to him for an answer.

“We stick together,” Mikey decides. “Andy’s the threat. If we can get him disarmed we can fix him, just like we fixed you guys and Gerard. The Dracs won’t do much. They’re just here for show.”

“What was that, Kobra?” Korse calls. He has one hand cupped around his ear and is leaning in deliberately. “‘Just for show’? Well, then I must show you just what kind of a show my Draculoids can put on.”

“Oh _shit_ ,” Frank mutters.

Then all hell breaks loose.

A wave of Dracs surges forward. Almost immediately Mikey loses his group. Surrounded by Dracs his focus narrows to basic battle instincts. Dodge, aim, fire, and repeat.

He hopes Brian is keeping Pete safe. He hopes someone is keeping Gerard safe. God, Gerard. They shouldn’t have brought him. He’s not ready for this. He’s too fucked up right now. He needs therapy, not more violence.

That’s all the Zones are filled with, though, violence.

Mikey shoots a Drac. He doesn’t even have the chance to watch it fall before another Drac is upon him. He guns that one down as well.

His path is clear suddenly. No more Dracs are attacking him. Mikey rests his free hand on his knee and just breathes for a moment.

A cold hand grips his throat. He’s pulled upright and Korse comes into view; sweaty, disheveled and angry. Korse squeezes hard, choking him. Mikey gasps, but no sound comes out. He scratches frantically at Korse’s hand, but can’t pry it off. He thinks to shoot Korse, but he’s no longer holding his gun.

“I hope your brother gets to watch me kill you,” Korse growls before tossing Mikey into the desert sand.

Mikey means to reach for his gun, but he can’t see it anywhere.

Korse smiles, relishing in Mikey’s helplessness. He aims and-

A shot hits Korse in the leg. He spins around, looking for the shooter. Mikey spots her first. It’s Grace. She’s standing in a front window of the station holding a pink gun in both hands. Someone slams the window shut, yanking the blackout curtain back into place. It doesn’t seem as if Korse has spotted her.

Korse turns back to Mikey, raising his gun again. Mikey closes his eyes and waits for the shot.

It doesn’t come.

Korse lets out a strangled gasp and Mikey opens his eyes to see Gerard. He has one hand on the back of Korse’s collar. The other has his gun pressed under the operative’s chin.

“ _Nobody_ ,” Gerard hisses, “hurts my baby brother.”

He fires. Korse drops to the ground in a graceless heap.

“Ger-” Mikey tries to speak, but his throat aches.

Gerard rushes to his side. “Don’t speak. Are you okay? Can you stand?”

Mikey nods and Gerard helps him to his feet.

“Where’s your gun?”

“Here!”

Both brothers jump at the sound of a third voice. Turning to the sound they see Ray striding up to them. He offers Mikey his red raygun.

“You’re-” Mikey breaks off with a cough.

“You’re alive?” Gerard asks for him. “Korse said they killed you.”

“Well, he lied. The studio is a fucking maze, the Annihilator couldn’t catch us. We’re all fine.”

Ray points to where Patrick is joining the fray despite his bandages, shooting a Drac who was bearing down on Pete and Brian. A few paces behind him a strange Runner with a motorcycle helmet and bright blue-and-white polka dot tights glides towards the fight on a pair of dusty old roller skates.

“Coming?” Ray asks, tilting his head towards the combat.

“Where’s Joe?” Gerard asks instead.

They look around the area frantically. Mikey spots him first, alone on the far side of the fight and face-to-face with Andy.

Mikey grabs Gerard’s shirt and points. Gerard fires, but the shot only burns a harmless trail in the sand.

“Dammit!” Gerard curses.

Mikey steps forward and plants his feet. He takes a breath, aims, and fires. The shot grazes Andy’s thigh, exactly as he intended it to. Andy loses his balance, giving Joe a chance to flee.

“He’s targeting Joe’s group,” Gerard says. “We have to protect them. Mikey, you and Brian worry about Pete. Ray you and, uh-”

“Show Pony.”

“-protect Patrick. Frank and I will worry about Joe.”

They break apart. Brian and Pete are on the ground, breathing heavily when Mikey gets to them. There is one last half-dead Drac near them, Mikey shoots it.

“What’s going on?” Brian asks.

Mikey clears his throat. “We need to get Pete inside, he’s a target.”

“Target?”

“For Andy,” Pete says, looking shell-shocked. “That guy gave him orders to kill us, didn’t he?”

Mikey doesn’t know for sure, but it’s the likeliest explanation, so he nods. “Now get up.”

Brian heaves a tired sigh. “I can’t- I just- Can you-”

Mikey nods and holsters his weapon in order to help them both to their feet.

There’s a raygun blast and a pained scream. When they look they see Ray doubled over clutching his side, Patrick cowering behind him. Show Pony skates forward and tackles Andy, dragging him into the dirt. Seeing an opportunity Gerard and Frank race in. Before they make it, however, Andy kicks Show Pony off of him and jumps to his feet. He fires once at Show Pony, but the shot barely scratches the Runner’s helmet. Then Andy aims for Pete.

Mikey shoves Pete back into the dirt and crouches in front of him. Brian meets him shoulder-to-shoulder, creating a human shield. Andy hesitates, looking confused at the loss of his target.

A shot hits Andy in the shoulder. He reels for a moment, then turns towards his shooter. The next shots hit him in the chest.

Once. Twice. Thrice.

Andy drops to the ground with a sickening thud.

Nobody moves. Joe drops his spent raygun, letting it clatter to the ground. Gerard and Frank catch him before he collapses.

“You said he would stop!” Joe sobs. “You said you could make him stop! But he wasn’t going to stop! He was going to kill us! I had to! I had to!”

“Mikey,” Brian whispers. “Help me up.”

Mikey braces Brian and guides him to his feet. Brian stumbles towards the downed Annihilator. Mikey helps Pete up and they follow, as do the rest of the Runners.

“I need a knife,” Brian demands. Show Pony presses a pocket knife into his open palm. Brian begins cutting away at the white t shirt, slicing it until he can reveal Andy’s chest.

“What _is_ that?” Frank gasps.

In the center of Andy’s chest sits a hunk of complex hardware, burnt and destroyed by the raygun shots. Tubes snake out of the center object, some plunging into the flesh of Andy’s chest. Other tubes feed into Andy’s arms, legs, and neck.

“It’s an internalized support system,” Brian explains. “This looks like a crude system to keep him… functioning. Allow him to move and be controlled. I… I think you were right, Pete. Andy’s dead. He’s been dead this whole time.”

Pete starts sobbing. He buries his head into Mikey’s shoulder so he doesn’t have to see the automaton monstrosity that was his friend.

Patrick retches.

*

“It’s over,” Dr. Death-Defying says.

“It doesn’t feel over,” Mikey replies, tonelessly. He has no energy for emotion anymore.

They’re all in a lounge area of the station. The battle-weary Runners sprawled on all the available furniture. Mikey doesn’t think he’s capable of movement anymore. Even Brian, who has been known to ignore his own injuries in favor of giving others medical attention, is still where he collapsed next to Mikey on the over-stuffed couch watching listlessly as Show Pony glides around the room, patching up injuries. Pete looks the most alert, if not by much. His eyes dart cautiously between his two friends as they stare at nothing with blank, dead-eyed gazes. He’s holding their hands, but they aren’t holding his in return.

Outside a thunderstorm has hit. Every time the thunder claps the floor shakes and every time the lightning flashes it illuminates the roomful of weary faces. The rain pelts the station with terrifying velocity. The loud drumming it creates makes it almost impossible to hear anyone speak. The rain is acid, all rain in the Zones is. Right now the acid is probably stripping the graffiti off the Trans Am, all of Gerard’s artwork getting burned away.

Gerard doesn’t seem to care. He remains where he is, shoulder-to-shoulder with Mikey with one arm wrapped around Frank. His free hand is laced loosely with Mikey’s. Gerard shoots him a look and it’s clear that he’s not in a rush to save his work. Mikey can’t bring himself to care about the damn car, either.

Dr. D nods. “For you boys I don’t think it ever will feel over, but this is the end of this chapter.”

“How do you know?” Brian doesn’t bother to lift his head from Mikey’s shoulder when he asks.

“Your last stunt, when you infiltrated the Industry Building. That was a wakeup call for a lot of people. BLI tried to cover it up, but you can’t have an open shootout in the heart of the City and not have people who are going to see. In the months since then we’ve seen a mass exodus of people leaving the City, right Show Pony?”

Show Pony nods. “I’ve been organizing small teams of Tour Guides, Zone Runners who meet with the people on the outskirts of the City and show them the way. They teach the newcomers important skills, like how to shoot and where to get food and whatnot.”

“So,” Pete asks, “by you guys saving Joe and me, we won?”

“Basically,” Dr. D agrees. “By going back into Battery City and surviving you proved that BLI is weak and flawed. Not everyone will leave, mind you, but the ones that are staying are starting to question, to disobey. Or so say the people who have joined the Runners.”

Frank clears his throat. “So then, what was this? The Annihilators and all? You’re talking like everything we’ve been through in the months since has been pointless.”

“No, no,” Dr. D assures him. “Nothing is pointless. The Annihilators were a last ditch effort by BLI to regain control. They poured everything they had left into the project. By beating them you proved that their effort was really the corporation's death rattle. Now the industry is falling apart, piece by piece,” he glances at the storm raging outside. “Falling like acid rain.”

“So,” Mikey says. “We won?”

“Yup.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

Dr. D rolls his motorized wheelchair forward so he can ruffle Mikey’s hair. Mikey doesn’t have the energy to push him away.

“What are you boys going to do now?” Show Pony asks, rolling one foot absently back and forth across the linoleum.

“Sleep,” Frank mumbles, curling tighter against Gerard’s side.

“Leave,” Gerard says.

“Leave?” Mikey asks, watching Gerard’s face carefully.

Gerard nods seriously. “We left Battery City with no goal in mind, just the idea that we wanted to get out. Now we’re here, we’ve become the biggest threat BLI has ever know and we defeated their top operatives. And, if Dr. D’s reports are correct, then we’ve basically destroyed BLI. It’s not really the mushroom cloud ending I was going for when I first stood up to BLI, but Dr. D is right. This is the end.”

Now everyone is staring at Gerard.

“The way I see it,” Gerard continues, “we’ve served our purpose and since we didn’t die in the process all we have left is to leave. To move on to something else.”

“Where would we go?” Frank asks in a small voice.

Gerard shrugs. “I don’t know. But I think that’s part of the journey. Leave behind everything, get in a car, and just _go_.”

“Everything?”

Gerard nods.

“Fun Ghoul, too?”

Gerard nods again. “And Party Poison and everything we were as Killjoys.”

Frank bites his thumb. “I don’t-”

“I’m game,” Joe says, speaking for the first time since the fight. “This fucking world destroyed my life. I had parents and a brother before the Fires. Without them my three friends became my family and now-” Joe shrugs “-BLI took away my best friend and then they turned him into a monster. So, as far as I’m concerned? Fuck BLI, fuck the Zones, and fuck this whole wide world. You don’t know where you're going? Great, sign me up. I don’t care where I go as long as it's away from here.”

“You really mean that, Joe?” Patrick asks.

Joe nods.

“I’ll come too.”

“Me too,” Pete adds.

“Grace,” Ray asks. “Would you want to go?”

Grace thinks about it for a moment. “Can we go someplace cooler?”

Gerard laughs. “Sure, why not? What about you, Frank?”

“I'll follow you,” Frank decides. “Wherever you go.”

Gerard smiles and kisses him.

Mikey turns to Brian. “I can’t stay, not if Gerard leaves. I can’t be without him again. I want you to come with us, but I’m not going to make you do something you don’t want to. So, what do you think?”

Brian sighs, tapping his fingers on Mikey’s chest contemplatively. Finally he meets Mikey’s eyes.

“I think I love you.”

Mikey kisses him. Hard.

 

**_End_ **


End file.
